Couple's prehistoric 'money tree' produces first ever seeds worth more than £5k

BirminghamWorld

One of the world's rarest and oldest trees which dinosaurs used to snack on is bearing fruit for the first time after a retired couple planted it in their garden. Wollemi pines – dubbed dinosaur trees – date back more than 90 million years and were thought to have died out with T-Rex.  But a cluster of the prehistoric conifers was discovered in 1994, 125 miles west of Sydney, Australia.  Saplings and cuttings were sold off around the world and one was re-planted by retired couple Pamela and Alistair Thompson.  The couple paid £70 for an 18ins (45.7cm) tall sapling which a friend had bought off the Shopping Channel.  They planted it in their garden in Wichenford, Malvern, Worcs., in 2010 and after years of loving care it now stands more than 13ft (4m) tall.

Transcript

00:00I'm the gardener at Pear Tree Cottage Garden. With our Wollemi pine having

00:07fruited for the first time earlier in the year, a couple of days ago it decided to

00:13drop its seeds. Wildly exciting and we've got lots of seeds and furthermore we're

00:19doing a Twilight Garden by Candlelight this Sunday the 24th and we've decided

00:25to sell some of the seeds for charity, the charity being the National Gardeners

00:31Scheme. Over the years that we've been opening for the National Gardeners Scheme

00:36we've raised an amazing £33,000 and this goes to the National Gardeners Scheme

00:43and they in turn hand it out to all the caring charities like Macmillan and

00:48Marie Curie and we're opening from 4 until 10 and we light hundreds of tea

00:57lights in jam jars. I think I've got 400 so far and we invite visitors to come and

01:03watch the bats and listen to the owls in the aid of charity.

Category

Transcript

Recommended