Welcome to The Yorkshire Arboretum

It was the first  opening day of the season for us today, when we unveiled our new name, The Yorkshire Arboretum, and with it our spendid new livery and logo: a crisp and memorable design. We also have a lovely new website, www.yorkshirearboretum.org (although this still a work in progress). This morning our new signage was erected along the avenue, at last giving visitors clear directions to the arboretum.

One of our new signs, with the arboretum behind.

The rebranding exercise, which has taken so much time this winter, is part of the grand plan to make the arboretum recognised as an independent body, distinct from the Castle Howard Estate (our landlords, and indeed partners in the Trust), and to turn its fortunes around. It's a great challenge that I'm very proud to be leading.


View down the main vista on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, in the arboretum, spring is coming slowly. We have a huge collection of willows, one of our founder Jim Russell's obsessions, and many of them are now covered in catkins that looked lovely in the bright sunlight we enjoyed on Wednesday and Thursday. Alders are also in catkin and it's interesting to see the diversity of shape and colour in that genus. The ground is drying out slowly, thank goodness, but it is still very boggy in places, an issue we're going to have to tackle with more drainage and hard paths in the years ahead.

Salix kinuyanagi

Salix daphnoides 'Ruberrima'

Alnus japonica

And there are just a few aconites and snowdrops...