There are over 1,400,000 Barcham trees growing within the U.K. Landscape!

Our nursery has been growing trees for over 30 years and over 1.4 million of our instant impact trees are now planted within our U.K. landscape. So whatever city, town, village or garden you live by, you are never too far away from a Barcham tree!

Autumn is a great time to notice trees. I’ve just been to our local supermarket and saw a line of magnificent Liquidambar turning into their autumnal foliage display from trees we supplied about 10 years ago

This Acer griseum, supplied about 7 years ago is thriving in a village garden and fills its space beautifully with autumn foliage interest and year round bark interest.

Betula albosinensis Fascination is one of our favourites here at Barcham and this one, planted 14 years ago, is one of the first of this variety to be planted within the uk. It’s beautiful bark is stunning year round but this time of year it’s foliage turns a buttercup yellow to add to its appeal.

Betula utilis Jacquemontii remains the most popular of Birch’s we supply. Known for its gleaming white trunk from a young age, the Himalayan Birch is great as a multi stem or single stemmed tree. This one was planted 12 years ago in a garden in Rutland and it provides stunning year round interest.

We hope you enjoy your trees this autumn and we already have our sights on 2030 by which time we hope to have over 2 million trees growing away nicely in the uk. The acorn crop we collected this year will be ready for sale by 2025 onwards so we have already started the work!

There was an interesting article in the Times by their Education Correspondent, Nicola Woolcock, last week. It mentions yet another tree genus that has succumbed to illness as a direct result of tree imports from Europe. Our country already has a huge Oak Processionary Moth problem in London but the moth affecting Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is now rife all over the UK and severely debilitates its leaves via its young that eats them inside out. This then makes the tree more susceptible to other more menacing diseases such as Canker stain and the article refers to Stephen Woodward of the University of Aberdeen saying that these majestic trees will be ‘decimated in places and eventually most will disappear’.

So no more conkers on strings for our kids then.

Our nations biosecurity is under the most severe threat with nurseries bringing in plant material from all over Europe without any thought or checks as to what pest and diseases they may carry. We have been beating the drum for tighter biosecurity for years and was delighted to see a robust statement coming out this week from the Arboricultural Association urging the need for specifiers to source home grown plants to combat the threat of these nasty entrants. This statement has been endorsed by DEFRA, the Forestry Commission and the Royal Horticultural Society amongst others and is a real stride forward to curbing these damaging imports.

I visited the magnificent Burghley House in Stamford last week to collect acorns and sweet chestnuts from the superb ancient trees growing on the estate. This year Peter Glassey, head forester, showed me a Castanea sativa that is over 600 years old and the seed I collected from this tree will be ready to sell within our Heritage range in 2018 and as bigger trees in our instant impact range in 2023. Tree growing is a long term business! Built in the mid 1550s by William Cecil under the reign of Elizabeth 1st, this wonderful old tree was already over 100 years old when the estate took shape and it still thrives today under the care of Peter who safeguards these ancient trees from the needs of agriculture.

My criteria for collecting seed is simple. The parent has to be a magnificent specimen of great age which proves to me that it has withstood the rigours of our variable climate for many centuries. If a trees has withstood great freezes, floods, droughts, storm force winds and intense summers then its offspring will be made of stern stuff! I also select on seed size and like to pick straight from the tree rather than from fallen seed collected from the ground. My final criteria is patience. I last collected seed from a very ancient oak in Northamptonshire 4 years ago and it hasn’t set any acorns since. However the tree is such a belter that I visit in September one per year to check up on it, waiting and always hoping for another bonanza year!

The Quercus robur, English Oak, from Burghley are wonderful and the estate is also known for its great avenues of mature Tilia, Lime, that support lots of mistletoe. All the vistas and avenues lead back to the house itself which has a fairy-tale quality to it. It you make a visit I would also strongly recommend its Orangery Tea Rooms which round off my seed collecting days very nicely!

My thanks to Peter and the Estate for letting me collect seed from Burghley, it is always a great day out.

According to the BBC, the meteorological start to autumn starts on September 1st and trees would certainly agree with this. Our new crops are now available for sale and deciduous tree foliage is in gentle decline to leaf fall in about six weeks or so. Many of our trees have been grown at Barcham all the way through from the proverbial acorn but those trees that have been imported from the continent have been left to grow here until this date to assure that they are free of any imported pest and disease. We are the only nursery that follows a strict biosecurity policy to ensure our stock doesn’t hold a threat to the wider landscape and we need the growing season to assess the stock and verify it’s health. It’s not only us that make this assessment, our nursery has been inspected by DEFRA to rubber stamp that our trees are clean.

Your garden trees may be changing colour with leaf blotches and mildews becoming more noticeable. A leaf due to be jettisoned reduces its defences and is more likely to be prone to external fungal attack. This is a natural process and nothing to worry about, just watch on and enjoy the show of vivid autumn colour that is often fleeting but always spectacular! Sometimes it can be alarming to see a tree look like its struggling when the weather is 25 degrees with blue sky in September but on most occasions September prompts a deterioration in leaves so do not despair!
The trees that start earliest in the spring are more likely to decline first in autumn. Sorbus aria Lutescens can start defoliating as early as August and the maturing Betula ermanii in my garden is already showing the clear yellow of autumn and will be three quarters defoliated by the end of September. Late starters such as Liquidambar still look green as grass and their autumn display will carry on into the beginning of December in some years when most other genus have dropped all their foliage.

Most trees are six months on and six months off and their transitional period between these two states is always slow and deliberate.

I hope you enjoy the autumn, a fantastic time of year!

Our new season birch are looking sensational this year, brimming with foliage and bark colour. I’ve only got three varieties of Birch in my garden and the bark colour they give all year round lifts the garden even on the most gloomy of winter days. Perhaps my favourite, Betula albosinensis Fascination has a bark that peels revealing a creamy white beneath but also a vivid dark orange colour on the underside of the peel. Its catkin display in April is always showy and its upright habit means it requires very little maintenance.

I have Betula utilis Jacquemontii growing as a multi stem and this is the most popular of birches that we sell, so much so that we generally sell out by the end of March each year and have to wait until September before the new crop comes online. Commonly known as the Himalayan Birch or the White Birch there are many slightly different varieties such as Doorenbos, Grayswood Ghost, Snowqueen or Jacquemontii. I defy the layman to tell the difference between them! We sell them under the unifying banner of Jacquemontii and this year we have about 2,000 to go at.

Betula ermanii is the third variety of birch in my garden and this is always the first tree to leaf up in the spring. Its uniform habit means I have not had to touch it in 15 years and I don’t anticipate having to apply any maintenance in the future. The great thing about Birch is that they give dappled shade rather than dense shade so your garden is not deprived of too much sunlight.

A birch I would love to have in my garden, but haven’t any room left, is Betula nigra. The orangey peeling bark gives great contrast within a garden and the autumn colour of clear yellow is wonderful.

Birch is my favourite genus of trees and no garden should be without one!

Today sees the start of the Countryfile live show at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.

The show features over 750 exhibitors, 300+ performers, 30+ features and 10+ arenas all spread out over 85 acres, making this one big day out!
The show runs from the 4th-7th August, 9.30am – 6.30pm

Celebrities such as Ray Mears and Rick Stein will be taking to the stage along with all the countryfile presenters, so like us you’ll be in good company!
We have a stand near the camera tower, so you can’t miss us, number HO35, come along and say ‘Hi’ if you happen to be going and pick up a few tips on planting and caring for trees along with our latest reference book.

We look forward to seeing you there.

More information can be found at Countryfile Live

Getting your newly planted tree established during its first summer after planting is all about the watering. This year has almost been the perfect storm for trees in that we have had buckets of rainfall to keep them going but this can lull you into a false sense of security.

The more established a tree gets, the more leaves it will produce but this lush growth can act as an umbrella which deflects rainfall away from the roots beneath.A newly planted tree still has a root system confined to within a metre radius of its original span so it can still be dry at the base of the tree after a rain shower and this will impact on the tree’s ability to support all of its new leaves.

Our tree hydration bags are the best bet for sustained and targeted watering but if you are not using these please make sure your trees are nicely wet at their base and don’t rely on rain to do this! The main trick is to keep the tree in active growth until the longest day, which has now been and gone, but a good watering regime until the end of the growing season will mean that next summer your tree will be established to give you minimal maintenance.

For any queries about the watering of your trees please contact us on 01353 720950 or try our our instant chat!

Once a tree has flushed with new spring leaves your work is done apart from making sure it is well watered. A tree puts a lot of energy into producing leaves but its payback is to create a surface area that can maximize its photosynthesis. Think of the canopy of a tree like a solar panel, storing energy from the sun. The greater the surface area of the canopy, the more energy will be converted.

This is why pruning a tree when it is in leaf is a matter of last resort. To interrupt a tree when it is in its energy harvest season can only have a negative impact for a tree. Trees are also a lot easier to prune when they are dormant as the resulting spoil is a lot easier to get rid of without leaves attached.

So what about evergreen trees? Well, these are slightly different as they hold their leaves year round but if these are pruned too late in the summer they too are adversely affected. An evergreen will stop producing new leaves by mid to late summer so if they are reduced then you deplete their ability to feed throughout the winter. Early spring pruning of evergreens is preferable, just before they flush.

So all there is left to do is to sit back and enjoy the show! The more water you give a newly planted tree the better its performance (so long as your soil is free draining) and you can add some general fertilizer into the maintenance regime in June & July to maximize growth.

There aren’t many times that we advise doing very little in the garden but the summer is the exception!

Our stand is looking nice and lush this year, with lots of interest in our hot off the press publication, Time for trees 3, on Press Day Monday.

The show ground has just emptied in preparation for the Royal viewings and will reopen for the Gala evening this evening.

Now that all the work has been done to create our ‘tree garden’ we can sit back, relax and enjoy the show! The gardens look great this year so if you are coming to Chelsea this week you have a lot to look forward to.

This year we have bought some fantastic beech to show off, including the little known but great looking Fagus orientalis Iskander. This new introduction doesn’t suffer from aphid like common beech so it’s leaves remain full and glossy all season long. It is an upright grower so is also suited for those with smaller gardens.
We also have a selection of our pleached panel trees and a very tactile Bhutan Pine that I think is going to get stroked to death by Saturday! Our new book is just £10 if you pick up your copy at Chelsea, reduced from the £25 we charge if we have to post it.

Look forward to seeing you here over the coming days.