New Home for Unwanted Christmas Tree
7th December 2021
Tree Advisory Board volunteers (left to right) Roger Belcher, Victoria Rees, Richard Cotmore and Mike Ford on Dullshot Green with Epsom & Ewell Borough Council's Tree Officer, Jeremy Young.
Unwanted tree of Christmas past has a bright future!
Members of the Epsom and Ewell Tree Advisory Board marked National Tree Week (Saturday November 27 to Sunday December 5) with the planting of a Caucasian Fir which stands every chance of gracing the town centre landscape for at least a couple of hundred years to come.
The specimen - which has been nurtured to its current size by Tree Advisory Board (TAB) founder and former chairman Mike Ford - was a lucky survivor of a January clearance sale in 2015 having not been chosen to adorn someone's living room bedecked in lights and baubles that Christmas.
By the time countless thousands of its more 'loved' contemporaries were heading for recycling or refuse, the fortunate little fir was putting down roots in Mike's 'nursery' in the back garden of his Copse Edge Avenue home - a facility that has subsequently proved the inspiration of a major new TAB tree raising facility in the Alexandra Road allotments.
On Saturday (December 4), however, the Caucasian Fir was planted in its new permanent home in Dullshot Green where it has the space to grow to maturity and every opportunity of surviving well into the 22nd Century - and possibly beyond.
Mike explains: "Caucasian Firs are a long-lived species, and the tree in question is now part of what will in time become a landmark evergreen cluster comprising another Caucasian Fir and two Coast Redwoods. “While only the youngest of today's Epsom & Ewell residents will be around to see these trees approaching maturity, in time they have every potential to become landscape trees of the same stature as the original Cedars in Church Street that were lost in the Great Storm of 1987, or the mercifully still surviving veteran Oaks in Chessington Road.
"It's important to remember that the mature trees that grace the environment today are effectively gifts from a bygone age - and, as we approach Christmas 2021 it is nice to think that an unwanted Christmas tree from the last decade has every chance of being enjoyed by our grandchildren's children's children!"
About the Author:
The Epsom and Ewell Tree Advisory Board is a group of environmentally minded volunteers that works to safeguard the Borough's trees. As well as promoting planting initiatives in parks and open spaces TAB is actively campaigning for the resumption of street tree planting following its near total cessation in recent years. Interested in joining the campaign? Email epsomandewelltab@gmail.com