Peace Garden Loses Hiroshima Tree

On May 4, 2005 the University welcomed a gift from the city of Hiroshima, Japan. So significant was this gift that Rob Scott, head gardener designed and created a secluded garden as its home. The  sapling (known on campus as the Peace Tree and the Hiroshima Tree) was “grown from seeds from a tree (Firmiana Platanifolia) which miraculously survived the Hiroshima holocaust at a point 1.3km north-east of the epicentre at 8:15am on 6 August 1945.” ¹ 

The tree has been with us for the past 12 years in a sheltered location in the Peace Garden outside the Chapel. It has been a key part of the Heritage Trail – a walk that the Alumni Team use to show visitors and alumni reunion groups around the campus.

It is with great sadness that we have to report the loss of the Hiroshima Tree this summer following declining health during the past year. It has done remarkably well for a species not well suited to our climate. In fact Rob Scott quotes the Royal Horticultural Society in their reply to his solicitation for advice in 2005: “The Chinese Parasol Tree [its common name] can only be grown in tropical, frost-free climates…” The RHS advocated a moist, well-drained location in full sun and sheltered. All of those conditions were met but despite the expert care from the gardeners, the tree started failing during the summer of 2016.

As tensions rise around the world, and conflicts appear more likely, we’re sorely missing the Firmiana and all it represented. The tree from the people of Japan was given “in order to pass a love of peace and respect for living things to future generations and share with British people a vision of a world free from nuclear weapons.” ¹

^{1 “Hiroshima Tree” program, published for the ceremony, May 2005}