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Big projects incoming

With the recent opening of our new Shop and Plant Centre at Markshall Estate, you might be forgiven for thinking things would quieten down a little – but you’d be wrong! In our Arboretum, we have two major landscaping projects getting underway. These are located towards the top of the Arboretum, in our North America and Asia zones.

North America will be the site of the first project

The Death Valley Project will be located just to the west of the Memorial Site and will encompass the creation of a new lake. This will sit dry during the summer months and fill with rainwater during the winter. The landscape surrounding the lake will be undulating and provide our Arboretum Team with the opportunity to introduce a wide range of new plantings suited perfectly to this new, drier landscape. Look out for Yucca’s, Californian lilac (Ceanothus), and North American conifers.

Work begins on preparing the Himalayas site

To the east of Robins Brook in our Asia zone, we have a truly mountainous project underway. Around 15,000 cubic metres of soil will be moulded into a belt of raised mounds that will represent the Himalayas. Covering a site of roughly 10 acres, this gives us the opportunity to introduce several new plants and trees to our Arboretum, including Himalayan birch (Betula utilis), ginkgo biloba and a host of other Asian trees and shrubs.

The topsoil from the site will be scraped off and then spread back over the top of the mounds. This means the original Deer Park sward and seed bank from the ground is retained.

Work on the two projects has begun. Visitors will see safety fencing has been erected on both sites, which will remain in place for the duration of the works, as well as an increase in heavy machinery moving around the Estate.

Stay tuned for more updates on these exciting projects!

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