Thoughtless ‘coin hammering’ is threatening trees at a Perthshire wildspace and causing concern for NTS rangers.
The tradition of the ‘wishing tree’ has been observed in Scotland for hundreds of years, with a sacred tree usually found close to a holy well.
The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) is keen to educate those, who perhaps in the spirit of romance, ‘good luck’ or just apparently harmless fun, have been hammering pennies and 5p coins into the sides of tree stumps at The Hermitage near Dunkeld.
Copper poisoning is lethal to living trees. With hundreds of coins being pressed into the wood, the often very old trees are at risk of dying through the unwanted attention of visitors hoping to make a wish.
NTS has a policy of when trees come down, they are made safe then left to naturally decompose.
Insects eat the rotten wood, birds and all manner of wildlife eat them and it all works well - until humans come along and add the metal pieces.
Rangers for NTS have found growing numbers of coins embedded into trees at its properties, particularly around the centrepiece of The Hermitage walks, Ossian’s Hall.
“We’ve noticed a growing ‘fashion’ to make votive offerings for wishes,” said Scott McMaster, properties manager for NTS North Perthshire.
“But coins trees mean a mountain of trouble in our woodlands, especially at The Hermitage.
“If you’re doing it to make a wish, we wish you wouldn’t, especially to live trees. You could kill off a 200 year old Douglas Fir as a result of a build up of coins driven into the wood.
“Instead of hammering coins into trees, why not donate the coins to our charity?
“NTS is welcoming 200,000 people a year to The Hermitage woodland. We know not everybody pays for parking and we spend a lot on maintaining paths which get churned up with all that footfall.
“Tell your friends and remind yourself, ‘stop putting coins into trees’. It is causing harm and a lot of extra work for our staff, who care for this magical woodland oasis just off the A9.”
