Big gums

This stump is all that's left of what was the champion Eucalyptus urnigera in the British Isles. There was a row of four, planted in the 1930s, and I suspect that they were lined out in what we know was called the Top Nursery before anyone realised that gums couldn't be transplanted.

Some time ago they were surveyed and all found to be suffering basal rot - we couldn't take any chances with the public passing nearby so they were all condemned to death, though the smallest one broke up before we could take action. Unfortunately nobody wanted to do the job!

They couldn't be felled as it would have destroyed so many beautiful plants in the vicinity. As they were standing in a row on their own and there were no adjacent trees to work from, four companies turned us down. Eventually our current tree surgeon came back to have another look and said that one of his guys would do it. Andy dismantled all three, dropping all the timber down in small pieces without any damage to surrounding shrubs - the tallest was this champion, which was about 130ft and as wide-spreading as the largest oak, yet he took all three down safely in three days. Quite a champion himself!