Treework Summer Team Meeting at Kew Gardens

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew…

…Groundbreaking research…

…Magnificent trees…

…Glorious company!

Yes, it is the Treework Summer Team Meeting!

In June our team came together from across the UK to learn, laugh and share our love of trees.

We were privileged to be the guests of Kevin Martin, Head of Tree Collections, who generously shared his deep knowledge of the trees at Kew and his groundbreaking research into selecting trees for climate resilience based on modelling the climate into the 2100s for every square kilometre of the UK and matching tree species that currently naturally grow in similar climates.

Anyone who has visited Kew will know that there are many magnificent trees, several of which date back to the first introductions of their species to the UK.

We visited many of these in the afternoon and members of the team researched and presented on several of them.

One of the great trees that we stopped to under was the historic Lucombe oak, where Marshmallow Laser Feast have applied multiple scanning technologies, including Ground Penetrating Radar and Cloud Point Scanning to generate a 3D model of the tree displayed and interactively animated on a giant screen. The tree is magnificent, and the installation is spellbinding.

Philippa Lavers teamed with Luke Fay to present on the oldest Ginko at Kew, Phil Fox teamed with Matt Searle to talk about Wollemi pine, James Butler White took us to a magnificent Turners oak that had been declining in 1986 and had been blown so hard by the ’87 storm that it partially uprooted, thus decompacted the soil in its root environment after which it thrived, and James Covenant introduced us to the concept of allelopathy under a magnificent black walnut spreading Juglone through the ground to suppress competition.

Philippa said: “As a ‘non-arb’ member of the team, I learn something new about trees every day but researching one of Kew’s oldest trees (one of the ‘Old Lion’s), the Gingko Biloba, ‘Maidenhair’ was surprisingly fascinating. A great bit of history about Kew itself, and some unique facts about this tree, which may well now be my favourite. I’m pretty sure the arb-team didn’t learn anything factually new, but they seemed surprised to hear that this specimen was originally two male seedlings planted together with a female branch grafted on later. I admit that I am keen to learn more about trees after this nudge in to slight discomfort zone!”

Kevin Martin’s research on Navigating the future: unveiling the resilience of trees in evolving UK climates: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kevin-martin-head-of-trees-kew_pdf-navigating-the-future-unveiling-the-activity-7334136294438027264-RGda?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAALSl-IBzZhtFavGAMgkqiuGocfA_dyyltw

Kevin Martin’s research on Species-specific evaluation of growth and environmental tolerance for ecosystem services – evaluation from a botanic tree collection: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kevin-martin-head-of-trees-kew_urbanforestry-urbangreening-treeselection-activity-7321874838334169088-6bGs?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAALSl-IBzZhtFavGAMgkqiuGocfA_dyyltw

Of the Oak by Marshmallow Laser Feast: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marshmallowlaserfeast_oftheoak-mlf-marshmallowlaserfeast-activity-7331319794278744064-U8zQ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAALSl-IBzZhtFavGAMgkqiuGocfA_dyyltw