Let's get serious about trees

When we get outdoors, trees form a large part of the beautiful scenery that we enjoy. The budding green of spring, fiery red of autumn and spindly silhouettes of winter all take a huge amount of care and attention from our ranger team.

Shugborough has 900 acres of parkland full of a wide variety of trees from all over the world. In order to make sure our trees stay with us for the future, and to ensure you are not bumped on the head by the odd falling branch, our highly skilled rangers carry out yearly tree inspections. Our rangers are skilled enough to instantly spot diseases and problems with our trees. You may be lucky enough to spot them inspecting with their probes, mallets and binoculars.


Most of these important inspections are carried out in the autumn months of September and October, as by this time trees are starting to lose their leaves. This means we can see the canopy to really check the tree’s health. See if you can catch one of these falling leaves and tick off number 33 on your 50 things to do before you’re 11¾. 

Children playing in the autumn leaves at Bodnant Garden

No.33 catch a falling leaf 

That magical moment in autumn where a golden leaf comes away from the tree and floats down to the ground - can you catch it as it falls? That's the aim of challenge No.33 catch a falling leaf.

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This is also the time of year that you can spot some fabulous fungi. The change in temperature and increase in rainfall prompts them to produce bulbous fruiting bodies. Not only are fungi great to look at with their bulging bodies, they can tell us a lot about the health of a tree. Species such as the Ganoderma Genus is one of the few key species which commonly affect our trees. 

See what interesting fungus you can find
Honey Fungus
See what interesting fungus you can find