The wonder of trees

Gardening with the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

Home & Garden, Leisure, Hobbies

4.4 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr Amy Jane Beer explores the marvels of all things arboreal – from the world's loneliest tree that also helped define our current geological era to the 400 year-old apple tree that inspired Newton's theory of gravity. Plus she takes a look at trees' wellbeing benefits too. Curator Matt Pottage explores the concept of Champion Trees, highlighting some of the magnificent specimens to be found at RHS Garden Wisley. And did you know that some conifers are deciduous and offer fabulous autumn colour? Matt is a conifer fanatic and shares some suggestions to light up your autumn garden. And finally... there's a call for citizen scientists as we're on the hunt for a new tree pest with RHS scientist Jassy Draculik. Her 'Check a sweet chestnut' campaign seeks to track the spread of a recent arrival to Britain, the Oriental chestnut gall wasp. Tune in to find out how you can help protect our precious chestnut trees. For links to topics mentioned in the show, please see rhs.org.uk/podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get your tickets for the greatest show in Earth at an RHS garden near you.
0:06.4	Where nature puts on an unforgettable performance of colour and fragrance to delight your senses.
0:13.2	Inspire your gardening adventures and entertain your own little stars.
0:17.4	Race you, let's go.
0:19.5	Catch Springs finest scenes while you can at an RHS garden near you, let's go. Catch Springs, finest scenes while you can,
0:22.1	at an RHS garden near you.
0:24.0	Book tickets online for discounts,
0:26.0	plus under fives go free and under 16s of five pounds.
0:36.1	Walking through RHS Garden, Wisley, you might be noticing the Rose Garden, the mixed borders, glasshouses,
0:42.1	but perhaps not the trees, which are often in many cases, quite significantly far above your head.
0:48.3	So today we're going to have a bit of a focus around some of our glorious tree collections.
0:54.4	And I'm currently standing on Battleston Hill under our champion Sassidifilum
1:00.2	Japonicum. It's an absolutely standout champion tree. One of the things that it's known
1:06.0	for is the very, very delicious scent of its autumn colour and it almost smells like candy floss or burnt sugar
1:12.9	and the leaves go a lovely butter yellow and the stem is tremendous this tree is known as a champion tree
1:21.1	it's the largest of its type in the british isles and there's two types of ratings for champion tree. It can be the tallest or it can have the largest girth.
1:30.5	And at Wisley, I'm proud to say we now have over 100 of these champions.
1:37.1	I'm Matthew Potage and as curator at Wisley,
1:40.0	I wanted to present today's gardening with the RHS to celebrate some standout trees.
1:45.4	On the show, I'm exploring why Wizzler's arboreal offering is so significant, discussing how
1:51.1	even conifers can be a great addition to the autumn garden. I know, shock horror, I'm talking
1:56.3	conifers, and then learning how to protect our nation's sweet chestnut and delving into the fascinating folklore
	...

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