Picea abies

Location – If you are looking at the Arboretum sign its to your right. You will have to really look for it as its tiny at the moment.

This is a rescue tree. It was someone’s Christmas Tree, which they planted somewhere in Dibbinsdale. It was found by Ste the Ranger and replanted here in early 2025.

PLEASE DO NOT PLANT TREES OR PLANTS IN DIBBINSDALE. CONTACT the ranger we can find a suitable home.

A common phrase used in regard trees is “Native British” This has a Scientific definition, but is often used inappropriately or misunderstood.

True natives 
Trees that colonised Britain during the time between the end of the ice age about 10,000 years ago and the formation of the Channel by the gradual expansion of ancient rivers, some thousands of years later.

How “natural” are our woodlands?

But the Norway Spruce was a Native British tree before the last ice age, but did recolonise, so is not considered a native.

Other things to ponder are vast majority British Native trees planted today are actually imported from abroad. Ash dieback (C. fraxinea) was confirmed for the first time in the UK in February 2012, when it was found in young trees imported from Europe to a Buckinghamshire nursery

Wirral Council’s Tree Warden tree nursery at Dibbinsdale is working other Cheshire based groups and with Cheshire Wildlife to grow local trees for planting.

There are effectively no endemic trees, i.e. trees that are native here and nowhere else. If all the trees in Britain were destroyed tomorrow, the world would not lose a single distinct species. (There are sub-species that are)