Gelli Aur

Although a little outside the area of this blog, it's worth sharing a few images from the beautiful Gelli Aur arboretum, situated on the hillside south of the Afon Tywi 3km south-west of Llandeilo. Many thanks to Keith Williams for showing Sandra & myself some of the estate's wonderful trees yesterday; the Western Red-cedar (Thuja plicata) is possibly one of the most exquisite trees we have seen since our interest started. Unfortnately Gelli Aur is due to close to the public at the end of March and note there are already access restrictions at this site.

I do apologies for our mugshots being in many of the recent tree photos, but it's the best way of illustrating how large some of these plants are. Below is a spectacularly large Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata) with a girth of 5.5m, that puts the Whiteford Monterey Pines, with an average girth of 3.8m, into context.

Chinese Witch-hazel (Hamamelis mollis) was in flower there too. I guess the bright flowers and fragrance would suggest this is insect pollinated shrub - it would be interesting to see what species visit it in this country; I suspect moths would be likely at night.