Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Dawn Redwood'

Metasequoia glyptostroboides is commonly known as the 'Dawn Redwood'. The leaf of this deciduous conifer is the logo for the Hillier Gardens. The Dawn Redwood was only discovered in a small valley in China in 1940. Seed from that first sighting was grown on in the UK and this specimen was grown from one of those seeds. Nowadays this is a relatively common conifer, grown often for its fabulous burnt orange autumn colour, and gnarled brown-red bark. Although much smaller, it resembles the giant Sequoia of North America.

What makes a tree, 'Champion Tree'?

I would imagine that most people will think that a champion tree must be a huge colossus of a tree, bigger than all the rest, but this isn’t necessarily the case. A champion is in essence the biggest example of that species of tree in the country and this can be height or girth or both. Even a dwarf tree can be a champion if its height exceeds all others in the UK of that variety. TROBI, Tree Register of the British Isles, is the organisation responsible for declaring trees, champions. Many hundreds of trees from all over the country are registered each year. TROBI will check and confirm that these are or are not, champions. At present the Hillier Gardens has one of the largest collections of champion trees in the country.