Tree of the Month - June
The Tree Register aims to represent the tree flora of these islands by reconnoitring its extremes: the biggest, the tallest, the oldest. So, on a recent visit to Scotland, I was keen to visit the old rhododendron gardens at Corrour, east of Rannoch Moor, which is probably our the highest altitude garden, created by SirJohn Stirling Maxwell on a mountainside at 410 to 440m. Most trees would struggle in the short, cool growing seasons here, but a few have thrived, among them this magnificent Chinese silver fir, Abies fabri subsp. minensis, which grows at the very top of the garden and becomes the tallest recorded, at 27.3m x 236cm girth.
Corrour is also one of our most remote gardens. It's many miles from the nearest public road, but only an 8km stroll across the moor from where the occasional train to Fort William stops at Corrour Halt.
Owen Johnson MBE VMM
(Photo: Owen Johnson)