Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2012/January 2013 | Page 68

COUNTRY LIFE

Ash...
the burning
By Tony Ridd
68

www.visitislandlife.com

issue

I can just about remember the grand
old skeletons of the English elms,
standing proud on our landscape.
As a nine year old, we had one
taken down in our garden, because
it became unsafe. I made a tree
house, from an upturned table nailed
crudely onto the raised stump.
Dutch elm disease tore through the
Islands countryside like a storm,
sparing no elm tree in its path.
Ash trees are more prolific, but
Chalara dieback of ash (Chalara
fraxinea) has the potential to do
something similar, possibly much
worse, to our ash tree population.
The ash is a fairly abundant, native
broadleaf tree. There are around
130,000 hectares of predominantly
ash woodland in Great Britain with
an estimated 12 million more trees
growing outside woodlands and
forests. It can reach heights of 40