£90 including buffet lunch

Why

Conifers are often seen as somewhat alien and even perhaps threatening, but this is often because we don’t know what we’re looking at. As beautiful trees with great ecological and commercial importance they deserve to be understood and appreciated more, and this starts with getting to know them.

Aim

This workshop will introduce you to the main groups of conifers found in British gardens and landscapes, and enable you to be able to identify the major groups using a few easily observed characters. Following a short introduction in the classroom, we will go outside to study them as growing trees in the arboretum, concluding with a summary session indoors.

This class is a stand-alone but also forms part of a three part Introduction to Tree Identification alongside Broad-leaves (30 September) and Trees in Winter (25 November).

Content

• Discuss the challenges of conifer identification

• Learn about the diversity of coniferous trees around the world, and their importance in the British landscape and economy

• Learn some easy characters to look for to distinguish the major groups

• Examine a range of specimens in the classroom to become familiar with points to look for

• Observe growing trees in the arboretum to see the diversity of tree form in conifers and learn to correlate this with finer details

• Finish with a cone quiz

Outcomes

By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

• Confidently recognise a range of widely grown, common conifers

• Know more about the diversity of cultivated conifers and their backgrounds

• Understand more about the cultural and economic importance of conifers and be able to tell other people about them

Useful accessories: Collins Tree Guide (Owen Johnson, 2006), 10× hand lens