Dr Andrew Hacket Pain, from the University of Liverpool, said a mast year happened due to a combination of factors including the weather, with the warm and dry spring this year promoting the pollination of oak flowers.
Emily Chandler said the nuts were “carpeting the borders” at Dunham Massey, adding that one of their tenant farmers, who is in his 80s, had said it was the best apple harvest he had ever seen in his life.
“The berries and fruits are abundant across the garden,” she said.
Ms Chandler said Dunham Massey’s candyfloss trees – Cercidiphyllum japonicum – which needed moist conditions to thrive, were changing very early this year and “the smell of burnt sugar from their multicoloured leaves drifts across the garden”.
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