It seems that, among the undoubted many talents of your reporter, Roger Williams, the arboreal does not feature.

Under the headline Our town’s gardens are being neglected, Chronicle, Sept­ember 8, he states that the Royal Avenue Gardens were “once a well-known botanical garden boasting a ginko (sic) tree, a tulip tree and a Chinese windmill palm”.

These trees still exist in full maturity, the gingko and tulip trees on the side of the bandstand plaza and two Chinese windmill palms, aka Nepalese fan palm and, more commonly Chusan palm, in the nearby lawns.

Missing from the list is the magnificent now over-mature monkey puzzle, as far into its life as the more senior Old Dartmouthians are into theirs.

Since these giants were initially planted there have been many additions expanding the botanical interest. Just beyond the toilets is a young gingko, growing strongly and well-placed if you wish to examine such species at close quarters,

Further round, next to the community greenhouse compound. is a foxglove tree.

Forced to grow behind the wooden medical hut once on the corner between Mayor’s Avenue and the Embankment and shadowed by overhanging trees from the adjacent then council greenhouse compound, this tree grew up distorted and unloved.

Now free from all these constraints the tree has relished the light and this year gave a good display of foxglove flowers.

More recent botanical additions have been the Australian garden with its information board and, on the plaza, two Indian bean trees and a pair of Liquidambar, the latter noted for autumn colour.

Also on the plaza is a hornbeam, which is often misidentified as a beech, the leaves being similar, but the trunk is very different. Finally, there is an unusual oak, which I have yet to identify with certainty.

So the botanical interest of the Royal Avenue Gardens is very real and increasing.

Concern about the appearance of the gardens has nothing to do with the trees.

Brian Parker

Crossparks, Dartmouth