Top Trees
Trebah has a number of significant and champion trees to look out for in the garden
Over the past 200 years, valley has been been home to thousands of trees of many different varieties. Thanks to its sheltered and mild conditions, many of these trees have been able to grow exceptionally tall and are now nationally notable.
Around a dozen trees even pre-date the Fox family’s transformation from wooded valley into pleasure garden, started in 1831.
In the guide below, you’ll find a selection of top trees to keep an eye out for at Trebah. Some are champion trees, whilst others are important in their own right.
What is a champion tree?
In 2012, plant recorders at Trebah submitted measurements of several trees to the National Tree Register. They confirmed that Trebah had 9 UK champions, 10 country champions and 19 county champions. You can read more about it here.
Champion trees are the tallest or widest recorded living specimens of their kind in the United Kingdom.
The Tree Register of the British Isles was founded by Alan Mitchell (1922-1995) who during his lifetime almost single-handedly measured every notable tree. The Register database now has entries of over 190,000 trees and is regularly updated.
Rhododendron ‘Glory of Penjerrick’
UK & Ireland champion
The Head Gardener at Penjerrick bred this tree-like variety of rhododendron in 1903. The deep strawberry red flowers fade to pink and bloom from March to April.
The oldest specimen can be found at the bottom of the Water Garden, whilst another propagation from this original one is now well established and can be found near the amphitheatre.
Common beech tree
Fagus sylvatica
There are many common beech trees in the garden but one specimen at Trebah stands out from the rest.
The beech tree at the bottom of Tarzan’s Camp is unique for its scale, but also for the multiple stems to its trunk. Over the years, the tree has tried to push itself apart and has grown large ‘elephant ears’ on either side of the trunk to help strengthen its base and hold it together.
Common beeches, also known as the European beech, can reach heights of 50 metres and put on a spectacular display of autumn colour.
Tepa
Laureliopsis philippiana, UK & Ireland champion
This rare evergreen tree is commonly known as Tepa. It comes from central Chile and Argentina, hence it is only suitable for milder climates in Europe. The specimen at Trebah is over a hundred years old and we believe it to have been planted by Edmund and Juliet Backhouse.
Laureliopsis philippiana is the only species in its genus and can grow up to 30m tall.
Japanese maple
Acer palmatum, UK & Ireland champion
Trebah’s Acer palmatum is a very mature and well established specimen, recorded as being 30 feet or 9 metres tall in 1930.
By the time this tree was introduced to Europe in 1820 by Carl Thunberg, Japanese growers had already developed more than 250 cultivars.
In Japanese gardens, the red form of this tree is often placed close to a water feature.
Chusan palm
Trachycarpus fortunei, UK & Ireland champion
Trebah has many chusan palms throughout the garden, but the tallest stands at around 15m tall. It is approximately 150 years old and is likely from the earliest distribution of this palm in the British Isles.
There were originally three palms trees planted together here, and even made it onto Trebah’s logo at one time, however one of the smaller palms came down leaving just two remaining. The garden team have since planted a third palm and it is rapidly gaining on its two neighbours!
The hardiest of all palm trees, Trachycarpus fortunei is anything but tropical as it comes from central China where it grows on cool, damp, misty hillsides. It is named after Robert Fortune who sent plants to the UK in 1849.
Douglas fir
Pseudotsuga menziesii
Measured to be roughly 37m in January 2025, the douglas fir found on Badger’s Walk is thought to be the tallest tree in the garden.
It is native to North America and certain types can reach 100m in height.
The tree gets its common name from Scottish botanist and collector David Douglas, a who first noted the impressive species.
Soft tree fern
Dicksonia antarctica
Trebah has many tree ferns in the garden and a number of them are of a remarkable size.
Also known as the Tasmanian tree fern or man fern, Dicksonia antarctica became very popular in Cornish gardens in the late 1800s as they were brought back from Australia as ballast in ships and adapted well to their new climate.
They grow around an inch a year, and the tallest known specimen in Tasmania is 12 metres tall.
The name antarctica refers to it being from the southern hemisphere but it does not grow in Antarctica.
English oak
Quercus robur
The English oak found on Badger’s Walk is thought to be the oldest tree in the garden. Estimated at around 400 years old, it was already a large, mature specimen when development of the garden began 200 years ago.
It is one of only a handful of trees that are known to pre-date the developed garden and would have existed at Trebah when the valley was densely wooded with native trees.
Coastal redwood
Sequoia sempervirens
The largest known living tree is a coastal redwood called Hyperion and measures a staggering 116.07 metres tall.
Trebah’s Sequoia sempervirens stands at a relatively modest 30 metres, though is dominant in our valley of smaller trees and can be seen clearly from the top lawn.
Find it on Badger’s Walk, where the large base to its trunk and its gnarled bark is quite striking.
Rhododendron ‘Trebah Gem’
Rhododendron ‘Trebah Gem’ was cultivated in 1893 by plant collector Richard Gill of nearby Tremough nursery at Penryn. It is a cross between Rhododendron arboreum subspecies arboreum and Rhododendron griffithianum.
It was planted at Trebah in 1899 and thrived, becoming one of our champion trees, though it came down in the early 2000s. All was not lost however, as cuttings had been taken and a number of new plants are now very well established.
One older specimen in the middle of the garden, pictured, is now suspected to be the UK and Ireland champion.
Rhododendron protistum
As a rhododendron which is rare in cultivation, we’re proud to have a superb specimen of Rhododendron protistum thriving at Trebah.
Found on Beach Path near Dinky’s Puddle, each spring it produces huge vivid pink flowers, which contract against its large deep green leaves.
It’s an old rhododendron, so we hope to take some material from it to safeguard it for the future.
Monterey pine
Pinus radiata
Likely the second tallest tree in the garden and found, fittingly, on Radiata Path, our most spectacular Monterey pine was planted by the Foxes when they began cultivating the garden.
They grow up to 30 metres in the wild, but can reach 60 metres in cultivation. Ours was measured at around 35m metres in April 2025.
Campbell’s magnolia
Magnolia campbellii, Uk & Ireland Champion
The specimen at Trebah is over 24 metres in height and, every spring, is covered in a mass of pink flowers.
Despite its size, it’s only around 115 years old but is very well established.
It can start flowering as early as January and fills the Chilean Coomb with vivid colour for a number of weeks.
Handkerchief tree
Davidia involucrata var. vilmoriniana
Our largest handkerchief tree has a particularly unusual shape and sits quite low, probably due to squirrel damage when it was young. Nevertheless, it puts on a fantastic display each year.
In May, it flowers with a spectacular display of pendulous creamy-white bracts covering its branches.
In autumn, the leaves turn a rich orange and are followed by large red berries.
A davidia takes 15-20 years to produce bracts, so more recently planted specimens planted around the original handkerchief tree still have some way to go.
Wollemi pine
Wollemia nobilis
Since their introduction to gardens in 2007, wollemi pines have thrived at Trebah, with the oldest ones now towering at over 5 metres tall.
They were only recently re-discovered in 1994, having been presumed extinct for 2 million years. By looking at fossil records, we know that the trees have been around for 200 million years.
The wollemi is a majestic conifer with loose hanging foliage and stunning bubbling, chocolate-brown bark. In the wild they can live for over a thousand years, though their only known location deep within Wollemi National Park in Eastern Australia is a closely guarded secret.
