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With the exception of Christmas trees, conifers are not widely cherished. People tend to associate them with antisocially high suburban hedges or ugly, nature-bereft blocks of industrial forestry.
But at the world’s most important collection of rare evergreens, which is 100 years old this spring, these often unfairly maligned trees are celebrated and revealed in a much more beautiful light.
Bedgebury national pinetum in Kent is increasingly vital as an ark for endangered conifers, which are globally one of the most threatened groups of plants in the world. A third of conifer species are at risk of extinction.
The pinetum (pronounced “pine-eet-tum” – an arboretum for pine trees) was founded by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and the Forestry Commission in 1925 after Kew’s curator complained that his rare conifers were choking in London smogs. “Anyone working in the pinetum would come away looking like a chimney sweep,” wrote William Bean, the curator of Kew Gardens at the time.
Set up on the southern Kentish Weald, Bedgebury was an ideal escape from pollution, and also provided varied topography and soils and both boggy and free-draining land to suit a wide range of species. Conifers planted by the previous landowner, the Victorian evergreen enthusiast William Beresford, were already thriving there.
In 1925, the first 315 trees were planted, overseen by the Forestry Commission, which was founded after the first world war to ensure an increasingly tree-less Britain became more self-sufficient in timber. Foresters were keen to discover which New World conifer species might thrive in Britain’s forests of the future.
Today the pinetum continues to provide Forestry England with real-world examples of conifer species that may flourish in the near future. Global heating, new tree diseases and political instability are giving fresh urgency to identifying resilient timber trees for the next century.
The pinetum is also a unique repository for rare species, with the most complete conifer collection in the world.
In recent years, its horticulturalists have worked to grow and save the Mulanje cedar, the national tree of Malawi that was illegally logged to extinction during the pandemic.
Staff were also the first in the world to successfully grow probably the rarest tree in the world, the Vietnamese golden cypress, from seed. Offspring will shortly be distributed to other botanic gardens around the world.
Dan Luscombe, the curator of Bedgebury, described the Vietnamese golden cypress as “our giant panda”.
“We’re a tree zoo,” he said. “We hold on to species and repropagate them. You cannot conserve something if you can’t grow it. That’s the skill of horticulture.
“Conifers get a bad reputation because ‘dwarf’ conifers planted in the 1970s were never dwarf and never stopped growing. Leylandii is the suburban brute. But conifers shouldn’t be overlooked. They are some of the most amazing living things on the planet. These trees are like incredible paintings which we hold on to for posterity. These species have been around for so many millions of years and the biggest threat to them is our behaviour.”
For many of the 500,000 annual visitors who enjoy the pinetum’s trees and trails, it is a sanctuary of beauty and tranquility.
Liz Anderson, a volunteer at Bedgebury, said: “It’s my happy place. Everybody says that. I love trees and there’s such a variety here. The vistas, having the inclines and looking down on the trees, the different light when you come here – it’s the most beautiful place.”
The pinetum celebrated its 100th birthday as only a tree collection knows how – with a ceremonial planting. Two Japanese hemlock trees have been put into the ground exactly 100 years to the day after the first curator, William Dallimore, planted the same species.
The site is facing a grave threat, however. One of continental European forestry’s worst foes, the European spruce bark beetle, flew into Kent in 2018 and is established just 300 metres away from the pinetum.
If the beetle discovers the pinetum, it could destroy many species. If it moves north and reaches large commercial Sitka spruce plantations in northern England and Scotland, it could seriously damage Britain’s future timber crops.
Although Luscombe dreads the arrival of the beetle, he said the pinetum could become a vital real-world laboratory for assessing which species can best resist it.
“It could be devastating for the pinetum but actually we could be looking at the collection here and seeing what species are more susceptible than others to this disease and see which ones have more resistance and resilience. Sometimes, the bad happening is more for the greater good.”
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A century is a blink of an eye for many trees and an avenue of teenage coast redwoods – a huge tree of soaring dimensions – will one day be a natural cathedral. Tiny conifers are the giants of the future.
“What I am doing now isn’t for me, it’s for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” said Luscombe, who has worked at Bedgebury for 25 years. “There’s not many jobs you can leave a living legacy after you’re gone and that’s one of the joys of this. In 100 years’ time someone will be talking about the work my team have done and we’ll all be long gone. There’s something really rewarding about that.”
And while Bedgebury attracts thousands of visitors when it puts up trails of festival lights at Christmas, Luscombe has one final message to the spruce-sceptics: “A conifer is for life, not just for Christmas.”
Five of the best at Bedgebury
Vietnamese golden cypress (Cupressus vietnamensis)
One of the rarest trees in the world, the first time it was ever grown from seed by horticulturalists was at Bedgebury. The pinetum plans to distribute its young trees to other botanic gardens around the world.
Cathay silver fir (Cathaya argyrophylla)
A rare conifer from China, where barely 100 live in the wild. Specimens only came to the west at the turn of the century. Bedgebury’s specimen was the first to “cone” in Britain – producing valuable seed for the next generation.
Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens)
Now considered endangered in the wild, this vast tree of the American west coast has thrived since it was brought to Britain. Seed collected from the wild (to ensure genetic diversity) has been used to plant an avenue at Bedgebury, which will be spectacularly high in years to come.
Sicilian fir (Abies nebrodensis)
Europe’s rarest tree with just 29 left in the wild. Five seedlings grown from wild seed were given to Bedgebury and are now 3 metres high and thriving.
Yew (Taxus baccata)
One of three British native conifers (alongside Scots pine and juniper), many of the oldest yews in Europe are found in churchyards where the trees predate the church – and predate Christianity. Bedgebury has taken cuttings from a huge ancient yew in nearby Ulcombe churchyard so this particular individual, which could be up to 2,000 years old, is cloned and will live on.
