Island Life Magazine Ltd April / May 2016 | Page 68

COUNTRY LIFE

In the
Country

Sam's tip for the countryside!

Picking Wild Garlic

by Sam Biles
Sam Biles is Managing Director
of country Estate Agents:
www.bilesandco.co.uk

W

ild garlic abounds in the Island’s deciduous
woodlands. Use the white flowers in salads and
the leaves to flavour & garnish fish & meats. (Take expert
advice on identifying all foraged food – some plants are
very poisonous, also seek landowners’ permission before
picking.)

Trees under threat
Sam Biles looks at the recent diseases wreaking havoc on our native trees

T

he south of England including the
Isle of Wight were once covered
with deciduous broadleaved
woodland. Gradually much of this
woodland was cleared as humans made
the transition from hunter-gatherers to
farmers. They cleared the forests to form
areas to grow crops - ancient wheats
like spelt and enclosures and fields to
contain livestock. Ancient native species
such as oak ash and elm were confined
to the remaining woodlands and to the
hedgerows planted to keep in cattle and
sheep. These trees came to characterise
the landscape and to give it the form that
we are as familiar with today as were the
18th century landscape painters. Their
survival was intertwined with the people
who lived in the landscape and who
felled and used the trees in their daily
working lives. Oak was used for building
houses and for the mighty men o’war
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of Nelson’s navy as well as for supplying
bark to tan hides for leather. Ash for the
handles of the myriad of hand tools as
well as for spokes for the wheelwrights’
wooden wheels and elm for cart wheel
hubs, floorboards and of course coffins!
The elms have now largely gone –
destroyed in the 1970s by Dutch Elm
Disease and now the ash is under threat.
Ash die back is caused by the fungus
Hymenoscyphus fraxineus believed to
have originated in Poland in the 1990s,
the disease steadily marched across
Europe and reached the UK in 2012. It
could have catastrophic consequences
for our ash trees though some soil
treatments are claimed to stop the
disease. Oaks are not immune; another
fungus - phytopthora ramorum - causes
Sudden Oak Death and also affects other
species. This originated in California in
the 1990s.

With globalisation, less border control
and sales of seedlings etc between
countries it is evident that these sorts of
diseases can spread quickly. Only those
aged over 60 now clearly remember the
majestic elms of our hedgerows – their
passing was itself a tragedy. If they are
to be followed by the ash and the oak
then this country and the Island will
be much the poorer for it. The border
controls that the USA has in place to stop
casual imports of plants and animals are
notoriously strict. Our marine borders
do not seem to have protected us from
these diseases. Whatever one feels about
the EU it would seem logical for greater
bio-security measures to be in place if we
are to be able to defend our shores from
these or even more deadly pathogens in
the future. For many of our trees, though,
it is very sadly, probably too late.