Layered beech
Hi
Please could someone help answer this question. I live beside Kilravock castle near Inverness and it is famous for having a rare layered beech tree. It's a really beautiful tree and very old. If you've not seen one it has huge limbs that extend out like a spider that curl down to the ground where they take root and start growing straight up again, whilst still being attached to the main tree. But what exactly is a layered beech? Is it a different species to any ordinary beech growing in the forest. Or is it just cultivated differently? Can you make a beech tree "layer"? Does it do it itself? Would all beech trees do it? What makes some beech trees "layered beeches " and some not?
Thanks for your help!
Last edited: 22 October 2017 22:40:23
Posts
Layering is a well known method of propagation for shrubs and trees. You bend branches or stems down to the ground, scratch or slightly cut the bark on the underside and then peg it down to the soil with a bent wire or a stone. Leave for a year by which time it should have produced roots and the branch can then be severed from the parent and dug up and potted or planted elsewhere.
A layered tree such as the one you describe is simply one that has naturally, or with a little help, had low lying branches root into the soil and has then been left enough years or decades to become a feature.
Great! Thank you!
It’s a beautiful tree.
http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/discoveries/newdiscoveries/2010/The+Kissing+Beech