Sidmouth Arboretum’s annual Tree Week ended in glorious sunshine on Saturday 4th May when 14 families opened their gardens to allow people to visit some of the wonderful trees that live around town.

The week began with an entertaining and informative talk by renowned tree expert Keith Sacre to a packed audience in the Cellar Bar of Kennaway House. Keith let the audience into some of the mysteries surrounding tree roots, including how to help them when trees are planted.

The week also had three guided tree walks. On the Wednesday, a group of East Devon Tree Wardens and some town councillors were shown the progress that is already being made in The Knowle now that it has been taken over by the Town Council. On the Thursday, a robust group was taken round some of the commercial forestry on Mutters Moor. It was particularly apt that the group included Christopher Pound, current Chair of the local branch of the Devonshire Association. Now retired, Chris has a long relationship with Clinton Devon Estates and at least fifty years ago actually helped to plant the trees that are being harvested currently. The usual Friday walk from the Museum welcomed members of the Sidmouth Aspie Walking Group.

The largest event of the week was Saturday’s Meet The Trees Day. Recent weather was a bit of a worry, but the sun shone all day as several hundred people visited various gardens which ranged from small suburban plots to some of the town’s larger gardens with stately mature trees. Hosts not only opened their gardens, several offered other attractions including tea and cakes, children’s quizzes and treasure hunts.

Entry to the gardens was free but visitors were encouraged to make donations to the Arboretum’s tree planting work, and they did the event proud with donations totalling well over £900. This money will contribute to the next planting season when the Arboretum team will be joining with the River Sid catchment Group to plant hedgerows on the higher ground of the valley to slow down run-off in heavy rain.

Arboretum Chair Jon Ball said: “It is a real pleasure to see so many people engaged with our special treescape. The whole week is a real team effort but I have give special thanks to Rebecca Lockyear and Carolyn Trussell who managed the Meet The Trees event superbly, and to King’s Garden Centre for their generous support of our printing costs.”

The Arboretum’s next project will be working with local specialist tree survey company, Treeconomics and a group of volunteers to complete a second tree survey over the summer, following on from the 2014 survey which gave insights into the valley’s 400,000 trees. This will involve re-visiting 200 sites to count, measure and assess the health of trees across the valley. Then National Tree Week will be back in late autumn when the Arboretum will once again call on the band of willing volunteers who help with the planting season.