Biddulph Grange - Passing 600 Trees Spotted!

When I started this blog 7 years ago I added to my map of my quest a layer of 'Monkey Puzzle Trees I've Yet To See', one of those was Biddulph Grange garden in Staffordshire. What is unusual about their gardens is that they use 4 juvenile Monkey Puzzle trees in their formal planting scheme. The four trees in the quarter beds of the Monkey Puzzle parterre are dug up and moved after 10 – 12 years. Their new home is in the woodland creating a rare site in the UK - a Monkey Puzzle forest.

So I was rather excited that we were able to get tickets to visit the gardens whilst we were in the Peak District. The experience was as good as I could hope for, as not only were there a number of mature trees I had the amazing experience of one of the giants dropping two Monkey Puzzle nuts onto my head as we walked underneath it! In total we counted 16 trees, including the 4 juvenile trees.

'Monkey Puzzle Trees I've Yet To See'

A Present From The Biddulph Grange Trees

Biddulph Grange 1

Biddulph Grange 2

Biddulph Grange 3

Biddulph Grange 4

Biddulph Grange 5

Biddulph Grange 6

Biddulph Grange 7

Biddulph Grange 8

Biddulph Grange 9

Biddulph Grange 10

Biddulph Grange 11

Biddulph Grange 12

Biddulph Grange 13

Biddulph Grange 14

Biddulph Grange 15

Biddulph Grange 16

Biddulph Grange 17

Biddulph Grange 18

Biddulph Grange 19

Biddulph Grange 20

Biddulph Grange 21

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 603

Peak (Monkey Puzzle) District

Our break in Dorset was soon followed by a few days away in the Peak District staying in the incredible Shepherd's Hut at Gollin Farm near Flash. When Nathalie managed to dislocate and break one of her toes a week or so before we were due to leave, we were forced to reassess what we were going to on our holiday. The accident was caused by her trying to avoid kicking our lovely cat Anne-Marie. So as long walks across the Peaks were a no-no, I could looked forward to a lot of driving and not so much sightseeing, not to mention much less chance of me spotting any Monkey Puzzle trees!

Though, funnily enough, Nathalie turned out to be even better at spotting trees than I thought I was and driving through the spectacular countryside was much more fun than I'd thought it would be. Time and again whilst sitting in the back of the car, so she could keep her foot raised, she'd cry out "Monkey Puzzle tree!" The first she saw was the one in Macclesfield road that had to be a good half a mile away and only visible from the road for about 2 seconds as we were driving along.

We ended up spotting 11 trees 'in the wild' and a few more at Biddulph Grange (covered in the next post). We suspect the mature Monkey Puzzles at Biddulph is one of the reasons for so many trees, especially mature ones, in the area. The most spectacular tree would have to be the one at Manor Farm just outside Britain's highest village Flash, viewed from the road passing above the tree is quite breath taking.

Macclesfield Old Road - Buxton

Leek Road - Buxton

Flash

Manor Farm - Flash

Congleton Road 1 - Biddulph

Congleton Road 2 - Biddulph

Fold Lane - Biddulph

New Street - Biddulph Moor

Overton Road - Biddulph

Under The Hill - Biddulph Moor

Woodhouse Lane - Biddulph

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 587

Dorset Surprises And Delights

Having visited the Dorset coast regularly over the last few years you begin to think that you've probably seen all the Monkey Puzzles there are to see, except of course any newly planted ones. However, such complacency was blown away on me and Nat's recent visit! What was really surprising was that all of the trees we saw were on roads we have driven on many times before on our visits, covering the stretch from Weymouth via Portland to Bridport.

Portland Road- Weymouth

Lanehouse Rocks Road -  Weymouth

Buxton Road - Weymouth

Garston Hill - Chickerell

West Street - Chickerell

The only down side of the trip was discovering the beautiful tree in Wool (post here) close to Monkey World had sadly died. The whole tree had turned brown and was clearly dead.

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 576

Two More Trees - One Has Been 'Decapitated'

Another drive to just get out and about during the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in 2 new Monkey Puzzle trees being spotted. Both being close together on Friern Barnet Lane, North London. However, as is clear in the photo below the first one we spotted had a large part of its growth drastically cut at the top. This is not the first time we'd seen this type of awful vandalism by people, these 2 trees in Camarthen and this 1 in Ruislip. being earlier examples. The interesting thing about this latest tree was that despite its poor treatment it still had managed to produce a female (seed) cone! This led to me and Nat thinking that the cutting of the tree must have been recent. However, checking later on Google Maps Street View resulted in the surprise discovery that the tree was in the exact same stage of growth, with the top removed, back in 2008. Not only that but in 2019 there was a large number of seed cones present! So now I have a big question to find an answer to, can a Monkey Puzzle carry on living despite such vandalism or is it just a very slow death and the cones are the tree's last gasp at spreading its genetic material before it finally gives up the ghost? If I find an answer I'll post it on the blog.

The other tree as can be seen looks healthy and growing unmolested as all trees should, whether they're a Monkey Puzzle or any other species of tree.

151a Friern Barnet Ln

95 Friern Barnet Ln

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 571

A Lockdown Monkey Puzzle Tree

As we were finally permitted to travel further afield during the Covid-19 pandemic me and Nathalie decided to spend the afternoon walking in Epping Forest. As wed rove back we came across this lovely Monkey Puzzle tree in Grange Park.

Old Park Ridings
Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 569

Another Tree For Devon

A wonderful holiday in Dorset was topped off when a quick trip across the 'border' to Devon led to the spotting of this tree in Sidmouth.

Sidmouth

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 568