As the air turns crisp and autumn afternoon sun casts a warming glow across the estate, our team are turning their attention to getting ready for winter, preparing the gardens and grounds of The Huntington & Langham Estate.
Each year we take this opportunity to survey the trees which overlook Langham Court and Huntington House as well as along the woodland walkways, enjoyed by many of our care home residents.
We generally anticipate a number of the trees to require some remedial surgery or indeed felling completely. However, this year we were particularly concerned about the large blue cedar that has dominated the view from Huntington House since it was built in 1898. During Storm Eunice it lost a large bough and has been dropping its needles ever since. Sadly, our concerns were confirmed by the tree inspector, who has reluctantly recommended for it to be felled.
After being such a dominant feature of the estate for so many years, we were keen to continue its legacy and are delighted that, it has produced cones. We plan to harvest these before it is cut down and some of our green-fingered residents of Huntington House have kindly volunteered to germinate the seeds from the cones in an attempt to replace the once magnificent tree with its own offspring, so that its legacy can live on.
We will be posting about our attempts on our Facebook page for anyone interested in following our progress and look forward to planting our new saplings in the coming months.