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Ancient Trees

Measuring Anne's Great Oak at Farringdon

Ancient and veteran trees are one of our most precious wildlife habitats, particularly for rare fungi, lichens, bats and invertebrates. Veteran trees may not be ancient but they will have lots of splits, rotholes or a hollowing trunk, for example, which provide vital ecological niches.

Trees have a symbiotic relationship with fungi which encase their root systems. The fungi can access minerals in the soil, such as potassium, and pass them through the cell walls to the tree. At the same time, tree roots take up water and pass carbohydrates through their walls to the fungi. However the mycorrhizal fungi need oxygen to function and are very sensitive to soil compaction or pollution.

Ancient trees can be damaged in different ways, including ploughing too near the roots, fertiliser use on the rootzone and trunk, removal of dead limbs for visual or safety reasons and compaction of the roots by livestock or materials.

If you are lucky enough to have an ancient tree on your land, the golden rule is to give it space to live and die naturally. If possible, allow dead wood to stand in the canopy or lie where it falls near the tree; some rare insects live as larvae in dead wood on the ground but hatch and fly up to the canopy to feed and breed as adults.

If your tree is in a public place and you are concerned about whether it is safe, get it assessed professionally by an arboricultural consultant who can prove they have worked sensitively on other ancient trees. Lopping off dead branches won't necessarily make the tree safe or reduce your liability - assessing it properly and carrying out the recommendations will.

If you are farming the land around the tree, try giving it a berth of around 12 times the diameter of the tree trunk. This will give the root system more chance to thrive, which will keep your tree going for longer. Dramatic results have been recorded of trees treated this way; even trees with lots of dead branches can develop a smaller but healthy new canopy when ploughing is removed from the rootzone.

If you want to find out more about ancient trees and how to look after them, visit the Ancient Tree Forum. They are recording all the ancient trees in the country and would love to hear about yours. If you have an Oak, Yew or Beech tree over 5m in girth, they would be interested in hearing about it. For other species, if you know yours is one of the biggest in the area, it's probably worth recording on the national survey. You could also come along to a meeting of the Devon Ancient Tree Forum where landowners and ecologists meet up to discuss the finer points of ancient tree management. It's free and you get to visit some fantastic private parklands. If you would like to find out more, please e-mail us.

Page last updated on 18 May 2012