New life springs from rescued Sycamore Gap tree

The Sycamore Gap tree was mysteriously cut down last year. Young twigs and seeds thrown to the ground were salvaged by the National Trust. BBC News saw the new shoots on a rare visit to the secret National Trust centre protecting the seedlings. Police are still investigating what happened in what they call a ‘deliberate act of vandalism’ High security greenhouse guards genetic copies of some of the UK’s most valuable plants and trees.

Its hall of fame includes copies of the apple tree that Sir Isaac Newton said inspired his theories on gravity, and a 2,500-year-old yew that witnessed King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. When the tree came down, local horticulturist Rachel Ryver sprang into action. She climbed over the damaged tree and wall to collect young twigs with buds. The National Trust is still deciding what to do with them once they are strong enough.

Schools and communities could be given saplings to grow their own Sycamore Gap tree. Chris Trimmer has worked with plants since he was 12. He is one of the UK’s leading horticulturists. The first film he went to see with his now-wife was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Its scene of Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman catapulted the tree to global fame. Grafting is an old technique, used by ancient Egyptians and Romans. It binds fresh roots with living twigs that have buds of the same species. Chris was lucky.

Autumn is a bad time to do this work - it should be done in January when the trees are dormant. Five months on, they are looking after nine surviving grafted plants and 40-50 seedlings. Each one of these trees is a story, says Juliet. The best way to kill something is to over-care for it, she says.

But the sense of responsibility is huge and she has to stop. The tree was planted in the natural dip of Hadrian’s wall in the late 1800s. It will be three years before horticulturists know if the stump is healthy enough to produce the next tree. Until then, these seedlings hundreds of miles away are primed.

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