THE HUNT IS ON TO FIND DEVON’S FAVOURITE TREE

To mark 100 years of the Forestry Commission, this year’s Devon County Show is implementing several initiatives to celebrate this milestone in the Commission’s rich history, including a hunt to find Devon’s best loved tree.

The initiative has been introduced by Sir Harry Studholme Bt DL, the Commission’s Chairman as well as the Devon County Agricultural Association’s new President. ‘Devon is well known for its woodland heritage" said Sir Harry. ‘The Forestry Commission also has its roots in Devon, where the first ever trees, that kicked off a more than doubling of the forest area over the last 100 years, were planted in the county in 1919. More than 50 years later the Woodland Trust began in Devon as an offshoot of the Devon Wildlife Trust and Dartington was a great leader in new approaches to forestry.’

Nominations are now invited for Devon’s favourite tree.

‘It’s not just the variety of tree we want you to nominate’ continued Sir Harry. ‘We particularly want people to come forward with supporting anecdotes about the tree they love the most in terms of its particular personal significance. For instance, it could be a tree someone loved to climb as a child, or their cat’s favourite look-out post, or a tree with a special gnarly trunk that conjures up issues of a mythical tree from a favourite book.’

Once all the nominations have been received, the best 10 will be judged by a Panel including Sir Harry, Devon County Show Manager, Sam Mackenzie-Green and Ray Bater, Showground Manager. The final 10 will be uploaded to the website and the public will be invited to vote for the overall winner.

The winning tree will receive a giant rosette courtesy of Devon County Show, and the nominator will receive two VIP tickets to Devon County Show as well as the opportunity to join in the ceremonial planting of a new Lucombe Oak on the Showground - the 100th tree to be planted as part of the Forestry Commission’s celebrations.

Nominations can either be uploaded or messaged to the Devon County Show Facebook page @creamofdevon or emailed to info@dcshow.org.

Find out more about how to nominate by visiting https://www.devoncountyshow.co.uk/whats-on/devons-favourite-tree

Devon’s favourite tree, as voted for by the public, will be revealed on May 9th 2019.