Pavilion Garden elms are cut back, and a lime comes out to give them room

Tree work is under way in the Royal Pavilion Garden from Wednesday to Friday this week. Two elms are being cut back and four other trees taken out, Brighton & Hove Museums^1,2 said.

The two elms, by the public toilets and the café, are being reduced so they don’t collapse under their own weight. The garden has some of the oldest elms in Brighton, according to the museums. The cuttings go to a designated council site, which lowers the risk of spreading Dutch elm disease.

A lime tree near the elms is coming out because it is in poor shape and is crowding the trees around it. With it gone, the elms nearby get room to grow. A pollarded lime on the south border is going too. It hasn’t grown back properly since it was cut five to 10 years ago.

The Chusan palm and the pine near Palace Place are being felled to make way for a new service entrance, which has planning permission. Vehicles for future events will be able to get straight into the estate, so less traffic will come through the North Gate. The museums say that means less risk of damage to the gate and fewer emissions for people walking in the garden.

Some of this week’s work is routine maintenance. The rest is groundwork for the project to restore John Nash’s original scheme for the garden, whose capital works start this month.