Freshwater Trees
At School Green, Brookside and Queens Road horse chestnuts were planted to celebrate George V coming to the throne in 1903.
There are also black walnuts in School Green and Queens Road, which have replaced the horse chestnuts that have been removed due to being old or dangerous.
Row of lime trees at the back of School Green and a wild plum and cherry can be found there. Several willow trees have been planted around the public toilets.
On the corner of Brookside Road and Queens Road a sweet chestnut was planted to replace another failing tree.
Memorial trees have been planted in Granny’s Meade, School Green and West Green at Middleton.
Granny’s Meade orchard was planted with the help of The Footprint Trust, Green Gym and Friends of Granny’s Meade who also planted a fruit hedge alongside the horse field.
Most of the elm trees on Parish land are in Brookside Road and Spin Fish. Again the elms have been dying because of Dutch Elm Disease and three were removed last year. Three disease resistant trees were planted in late 2015 and are doing well at Spin Fish.
Spin Fish has a large lime tree on the edge of Queen’s Road as well as willow trees. Further along there are elms, ash and sycamore. To replace the failing horse chestnut trees we are going to be planting beech trees. In the middle section there is an aspen grove, the only one in Freshwater. The interesting feature about them is that the flattened leaf stalks allow the leaf blades to flutter and rustle in the wind as Aspens are often heard before they are seen. In the autumn the leaves change to a lovely golden yellow and remind you of toffee wrappers.
The Parish Council were advised by our tree expert that the number of Aspens should be reduced for the benefit of the other trees and in Autumn 2015 some of the diseased ones were taken out.
Jubilee Field has some lovely trees that were planted by pupils from our local school and in 2015 we planted young oak and elms.