Talking trees….

“A tree you pass by every day is just a tree. If you are to closely examine what a tree has and the life a tree has, even the smallest thing can withstand a curiosity, and you can examine whole worlds.”

William Shatner, Captain Kirk, Star Trek. 

Long before Star Trek, whilst the Ward family still called Bangor Castle their home, different adventurers were striking out for new lands – and all in the name of Victorian gardens and arboretums, places to count your wealth in unusual and exotic trees.

Castle Park is an arboretum which now belongs to the people and many of the huge trees we wander by or rest under were seedlings carried from Asia or the Americas by well-known and well-paid plant-hunters, then carefully nurtured by generations of gardeners.

Now, the job of caring for our trees and woodlands falls to Dylan Freeburn and we took a walk along the paths of our biggest urban park to talk about the trees, storms, succession plans, new trails and how our community can help with enlarging our tree canopy in Bangor and beyond.

Fromt left: Dylan Freeburn, Tree and Woodlands Officer with ANDBC; the root base of the huge pine tree brought down by Storm Eowyn in January 2025, with a 7-year-old for scale; the trunk and pine cones from the downed tree.

From left: the 250-year-old Monterey Cedar which might be a “Champion Tree”, a pretty Japanese Acer, the bark of a eucalyptus tree, an old monolith, now reclaimed by nature.

During our walk, Dylan and I discussed the ANDBC Tree Map which you can use to check the details of many of our public trees via the little metal circular tags attached to most trees.

Here’s the link to the Ards and North Down Tree Map

Music in this episode by audionautix.com