iCONic tree trail – Part 3 The third in a six-part series about how Perthshire Big Tree Country is helping to save internationally threatened species of conifers. Felicity Martin visits the grounds of Hilton Dunkeld House Hotel to see how a historic designed landscape is being revitalised by planting a new generation of conifers collected from the wild. Conserving designed landscapes Dunkeld – at the heart of Perthshire Big Tree Country The historic legacy of the past plant hunters, as explored in Part 2 of this series, is visible in designed landscapes all around Perthshire, no more so than at Dunkeld, where the ‘Planting Dukes’ of Atholl had their summer home. At one time, they owned most of the land from Dunkeld to Blair Atholl and established forestry plantations over much of it, but their major landscape enhancements – to create attractive vistas and delightful woodland walks – were focussed around their residences. Over a span of several centuries, they built four successive houses near the River Tay at Dunkeld. The first two were beside Dunkeld Cathedral and the third, a grand palace never completed and later demolished, was in the parkland beyond the cathedral. A model of it is on display in the Cathedral. iCONic Tree Trail Their final one, built further upstream in the late 1890s, is now the Hilton Dunkeld House Hotel. The iCONic Tree Trail is a virtual tour of Perthshire exploring sites that are participating in the iCONic project, a collaboration between Perthshire Big Tree Country and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s International Conifer Conservation Programme. The features in this six-part series tell the story of why the project is needed and how it is being carried Riverside walk in the grounds of the Hilton Dunkeld House Hotel © Felicity Martin out. A new feature is being published each month until September. The hotel has an enviable position, overlooking the fast flowing salmon river and surrounded by a 280-acre woodland estate that has been developed At the bottom these features you over four centuries. In the 1730s, James Murray, 2nd Duke of Atholl began will find information on how to locate iCONic sites mentioned and reshaping the landscape by laying out terraces and planting trees on a large enjoy walks in the surrounding scale, a pattern continued by his successors. areas. By the mid 1800s, many tree species discovered in the New World – often Find out more about the project at by Perthshire plant hunters – became available and the dukes were among www.iconictrees.org the first to try planting them. Putting seedlings of Douglas fir, grand fir and western hemlock in the ground must have been an act of faith. They would Or connect with iCONic on Facebook know of David Douglas’s descriptions of vast groves of these trees growing www.facebook.com/btciconic in north-western America, but would have no idea if they would thrive in or Twitter @btciconic Highland Perthshire. t If you walk around the Dunkeld Tree Trail grounds of the hotel today, you will see that their efforts were justified. Those same trees are now the most striking part of the landscape, rising high above the rounded canopy of the broadleaved woodland. Many of the specimens, now over 150 years old, are champion trees, for instance Hilton Dunkeld House Hotel from the the Douglas fir near the banks of the River Tay © Felicity Martin cathedral, which has the A map of the Dunkeld Tree Champion Douglas fir near Dunkeld Cathedral largest girth for that species © Felicity Martin Trail (including a few trees that in Britain and Ireland. have now blown down) can be downloaded from the Hilton The next generation of trees Dunkeld House Hotel website at www.hiltondunkeld.com The designed landscape is an asset that the Hilton is keen to conserve, as General Manager Mike Metcalfe explains. “The surrounding woodland estate provides a wonderful backdrop to the hotel and a venue for many outdoor activities, from walking and fishing to archery and quad biking. However, it needs constant maintenance, especially Hiba following recent severe storms, which felled a record-breaking Colorado fir, blew the top out of a giant redwood and caused much other damage. “We are delighted to be working with the iCONic project to continue the tradition of tree planting, including experimenting with species little known in Perthshire. Our work will ensure that in another hundred years this remains a stunning environment where the natural beauty of hills and crags is complemented by the grandeur of mature trees.” To see the work the project is doing, I explore some of the paths around the woodland estate with iCONic project officer Tom Christian. Tom Christian, the iCONic project officer, Just behind the cathedral, we enter Cathedral counts the rings on a fallen hiba in Hilton Dunkeld House grounds © Felicity Martin Grove, home of the oldest and biggest conifers. They are an impressive sight, Thujopsis dolabrata despite the storms, with elephantine boles supporting soaring canopies. The iCONic Although at lower risk than most project has helped to tidy up the grove and iCONic species, this shiny evergreen plant replacement trees that could be the is an interesting species not often record-breakers of tomorrow. seen in Scotland. Considered a sacred tree, its lovely fan-shaped The grove is also providing shelter for foliage has small, scale-like leaves, specimens of some of the world’s most streaked white underneath. threatened conifers, including Alerce and Chilean plum yew. In addition, many unusual ORIGIN: Japan. HABITAT: mountainous areas; trees that have reached maturity are being it cannot tolerate drought or replaced, such as Veitch’s silver fir and the excessive heat. hiba tree from Japan. One of best examples THREATS: the population is in Perthshire of the hiba, a beautiful conifer thought to be stable. from northern Japan, was growing on the Veitch’s silver fir planted in Cathedral ICONIC sites: Hilton Dunkeld river bank until recently, when it blew down. Grove © Felicity Martin House. Evolution of designed landscapes Florida torreya Tom tells me that the iCONic project also has plans for the adjacent parkland. “Up until the mid 20th century, all the fields were dotted with parkland trees, but now there are only two old beech left. We would like to reinstate the idea of parkland trees and have in the nursery a lot of Cedar of Lebanon. They can be difficult to accommodate as they grow into very big trees, but they lend themselves to parkland setting such as this. So in autumn 2014 we plan to scatter 15 to 20 in cages throughout park. Once the trees are mature, they should look fantastic set against the cathedral ruins and will be well spaced to leave views to the craggy hills beyond.” Nearer the hotel, we come to the American Garden, originally laid out with Florida torreya (above) at the Royal beds of flowering shrubs Botanic Garden Edinburgh and (below) at Hilton Dunkeld House © Felicity Martin that have been superseded by planted trees over the past hundred years. “Here we are continuing the tradition of tree planting, but with an American theme,” Tom View out of Cathedral Grove, past the ancient ‘Parent Larch’ says. “The species we’ve to the open parkland © Felicity Martin put in include Fraser fir and swamp cypress, as well as one of the world’s rarest conifers, Florida torreya. “Before the last ice age Florida torreya had a larger distribution up the eastern seaboard of the United States, but glaciation knocked it back into a refuge in Florida and it never got back out again. It is restricted to the banks of just two rivers. “Somehow, a fungal pathogen, probably of Asian origin, got in. The same thing happened to the remnant populations of Florida torreya as happened to elms in the UK. Whole big trees were killed, leaving stumps that regenerate Torreya taxifolia and throw up growth. Trees do not reach reproductive size before dying. Mature trees can reach 15m to 20m, “The species has been saved by cultivation. American conservationists but are now very rare in the wild. propagated cuttings from every remaining stump in a nursery. They Their long, needle-like leaves have distributed these around an international network of botanic gardens, a pungent smell, leading to the popular names “stinking yew” and including the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. In turn, we have propagated “stinking cedar”. The female cone is and distributed them, with two coming to Dunkeld. a single large nut-like seed within a fleshy casing. “Who knows what use this tree could have to mankind in future? From the next door genus Taxus, the yew family, they have distilled taxol the most ORIGIN: USA, in ravines along the potent anti cancer drug ever found in the plant kingdom. So maybe this Appalachicola River. contains something yet to be discovered.” HABITAT: shaded sites on limestone bluffs in a region with a warm and Planting for the future humid climate. THREATS: changes in land use and reproductive failure associated with We continue through mature mixed woodland, planted long ago in a classic fungal pathogens. style with European larch, European silver fir, beech and oak, with paths laid ICONIC sites: Hilton Dunkeld House out for recreational walks. and Cluny House Gardens. Behind the hotel we reach the foot Coast redwood of King’s Seat, site of an ancient hill fort. The lower slopes, planted with commercial timber, are being heavily thinned and planted through with Serbian spruce, which will grow in a more naturalistic setting, reminiscent of their native habitat. Further upriver we come to what Tom believes will be a ‘flagship’ Grove of newly planted Serbian spruce on the planting when it matures.