14/03/2026
I was going to tell a joke about bonsai trees, but it was a little short.
On a related topic, a person looking skywards through some of the trees at All Saints Warlingham churchyard could be excused for thinking they had been suddenly transported to the Far East.
The churchyard is fortunate to have five Cryptomeria Japonica Lobbii, tall conifers with distinctive bark, branches and leaves.
An evergreen, pyramidal tree native to China and Japan, it grows to 100 to 180 ft high in Japan, with a trunk 3 to 7 ft in diameter, and has been used there as a forestry tree from time immemorial and is thought to have become subdivided in to different strains adapted to local soils and climates.
The Victorians were keen gardeners who imported plants from around the globe.
The Lobbii variety is named after Thomas Lobb, who in 1853 obtained seed from trees in the Buitenzorg Botanic Garden, Java, to which they had been introduced by Siebold some thirty years earlier from Japan.
Trees from this source have rather stiff, short branches, more tufted and bunchy at the ends, and not so elegant as the common form.
Our specimens are mature, however their exact age and origin is uncertain with one school of thought being that they may have ‘fallen off a wagon’!
The Volunteers meet on the third Saturday of each month to help keep the churchyard in order. The 5 acres are managed in a wildlife friendly manner, with the next few months being amongst the most rewarding in terms of activity with birds nesting and young mammals about their business.
Newcomers are always welcome, tools are provided, as are free refreshments. Next session Saturday 21st March between 10.00am and 1.00pm.
