Ash Dieback Sadness

[roubaixtuesday]

Our house is named (rather pretentiously TBH) Ash Cottage, we presume named after the Ash in front of it, which must predate the house (late 40s) by decades. For many years, a pair of nuthatches returned annually to nest in it.

I've just had a conversation with a tree expert who has confirmed my worst fears - that it has the pestilence and must come down.

I feel quite unreasonably sad about it.

There are no currently known cultivars resistant to the disease, so we cannot replace with another. Cycling through the Cheshire Plain and the Peak District, there are thousands of magnificent mature Ash. Are we to lose them all?

 

[Drago]

They will always be remembered as long as the wood finds it's way into Fender basses.

 

[Archie_tect]

RT, our mantlepiece is made with a big lump of ash from a felled tree... make something from yours as a keepsake and plant a couple more - if they die plant two more- trees don't last forever so think of it as a natural progression!

 

[Proto]

We've got a lot of ash trees around the house, and had to take the biggest and the closest down last year, all diseased. Plenty of evidence of disease in our other ash trees too but will let nature take its course. Problem the surgeon had was that the location made it difficult to fell them so they had to be taken down by climbing and dismantling, which is normally not a problem but the disease makes the tree brittle and in an advanced stage makes the tree dangerous to climb.

Eight came down it total, photo shows most of them. Fortunately there is sufficient woodland canopy behind the house so it doesn't look much different now. Forestry commission fairly recently took a big oak down that was straddling our boundary, not in great condition, and being slowly choked by a big beech.

Tree surgeon told me that there are some trees which seem to be immune and that they will eventually recover. It could be a very long time before the species fully recovers, hundreds or thousands of years. Similar to Dutch Elm disease, apparently it happened before, 40000 years ago or something like that. Not very long in Earth terms.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

RT, our mantlepiece is made with a big lump of ash from a felled tree... make something from yours as a keepsake and plant a couple more - if they die plant two more- trees don't last forever so think of it as a natural progression!

Yes, we will definitely be doing something like that. We have a table, ironically made from one of the last local elms, and may get chairs from the ash to go with it.

But the mantlepiece idea is great, will contemplate. My tree expert (who is an amazing bloke) tells me it will take at least a year to mature the wood before it can be used. I am sadly in ignorance of such matters.

 

[PeteXXX]

I used to live in a house called Elmdale in Thanet.
Sadly, the first job I had was felling an old dead Elm (well, getting a proper person in to fell it).
Such a shame. It survived horses stabled during the Napoleonic War, soldiers billeting and tunnels dug under it in WW2 and a couple of Luftwaffe bombs either side that blew the roof of my house, and destroyed the old stables the other side of it.. 😔

We did keep some of it as a keepsake, though.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

On the skyline opposite me there's a wood and four fully grown ash trees have succumbed. In a way the skeleton of the tree outlined against other living (oaks largely) is quite beautiful. I'd rather they were alive though. There are others clinging on to life, but I expect they'll go the same way soon.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

I feel quite unreasonably sad about it.

Not unreasonable at all.

There were tears in our house when some muppet hacked at a lovely Rowan in the garden. It wasn't killed off but what a terrible event it was. Such a beautiful tree until that twerp messed it up.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The ash itself

 

[tyred]

I must admit it saddens me to see old trees being cut up.


You could buy a Morris Traveller/Morgan/Riley RM/other Ash framed cars available restoration project and use it to replace the woodwork

 

[midlife]

I lived in a house called Ashwood House that had a big ash tree at the end of the garden, I wonder if it's still there, maybe google earth will show it?

 

[PK99]

Our house is named (rather pretentiously TBH) Ash Cottage, we presume named after the Ash in front of it, which must predate the house (late 40s) by decades. For many years, a pair of nuthatches returned annually to nest in it.

I've just had a conversation with a tree expert who has confirmed my worst fears - that it has the pestilence and must come down.

I feel quite unreasonably sad about it.

There are no currently known cultivars resistant to the disease, so we cannot replace with another. Cycling through the Cheshire Plain and the Peak District, there are thousands of magnificent mature Ash. Are we to lose them all?

I have a HUGE (20m?) ash tree just beyond the end of my garden, roots dewatering my garden, and every year a forest of seedlings everywhere!

Could you please snd me a branch of your Ash tree?




(errm, just in case of doubt, I am joking!)

 

[Andy in Germany]

My understanding is that because Ash has more genetic variety than Elm, more will survive dieback; as they grow like weeds it may be quicker for them to regenerate as well.

Just in case, I've made my Xracycle deck partly out of Ash:

 

[roubaixtuesday]

My understanding is that because Ash has more genetic variety than Elm, more will survive dieback; as they grow like weeds it may be quicker for them to regenerate as well.

Just in case, I've made my Xracycle deck partly out of Ash:

View attachment 600166

As far as my googling can ascertain, there is little progress yet on finding resistant variants. Trials continue; there is hope but no answers yet.

If anyone knows better, I'm all ears.

 

[Andy in Germany]

As far as my googling can ascertain, there is little progress yet on finding resistant variants. Trials continue; there is hope but no answers yet.

If anyone knows better, I'm all ears.

My information was from the local forestry department: they said it seemed that some (they said 10%ish) dseemed to be surviving, but that's the result of observation rather than a scientific survey.