The Atholl Palace Hotel in Pitlochry is looking forward to a new batch of rare conifers arriving for planting in the grounds at the end of the summer.
The 48-acre grounds and gardens have been playing host to Perthshire Big Tree Country’s ICONic Project otherwise known as Internationally Threatened Conifers in Our Care since last year.
The hotel’s gardeners Innes Smith and Kenny MacPherson were approached to see if they would be interested in becoming involved.
The project is concerned with the care of conifers under threat from disease, deforestation, habitat loss and climate change.
It identifies threatened species and collects seeds from them, which are then grown in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh.
Once the trees are old enough they are planted out in selected locations one of which is the Atholl Palace gardens.
The project’s eventual aim is to plant several thousand trees of known origin at sites across Perthshire Big Tree Country, to act as a living gene bank.
This includes the potential for seeds to be collected from the adult trees to be grown on for planting back in the tree’s native country, which could be as far as Chile.
Mr Smith said, “We are very proud to be involved in this important project and have guaranteed to look after the selected trees we have been given.
“It was a tough winter but due to lots of love and attention all but two of the trees we were given last year have survived and are flourishing, so in all we now have 25 special conifers, with more coming in the next few months.
“The hotel is very fortunate to have such spacious and attractive grounds and we are in many ways the perfect host as we have several species of notable specimen trees which date from around 1880.
“These trees, including the noble fir, western hemlock, giant sequoia, Norwegian acer and the pea-fruited cypress, have been described as ‘an undiscovered arboretum’ and are now part of Perthshire’s Big Tree Country.”
Tom Christian from the project said, “So far we have planted a selection of trees from Europe, Japan and Chile, which are largely thriving in their new home.”