National Tree Week

It's National Tree Week, not that I expect most people to notice.  We have four large (over 10m) trees in or on the boundary of our garden, and several medium and small ones, and they provide much of the visual interest and wildlife habitat about the place.  The four biggies - three ash trees and one holly - are all mature and may be reaching the end of their lives, especially the ashes.

The holly tree was mature when we moved here nearly 30 years ago and, although it has some dead branches in it, I'm hoping that it is aging more slowly than the ashes.  It still berries well, not that it has any left this year; we cut several berried stems for Christmas decorations one day, and by afternoon of the next day there were no berries left on the tree.  The redwings and blackbirds which had been gradually stripping the berries were encouraged by a couple of frosty nights to take what was left.

The veg plot ash tree, pruned

I've written before about the big ash at the bottom of the garden (actually just over the fence in the field beyond), which is clearly dying either of ash dieback or old age.  It managed to put out more leaves than we were expecting this year, but it's still on the way out.  The other two ashes - one next to the drive and one, in the neighbours' garden but leaning across over ours, increasingly shading the veg plot - aren't so obviously suffering, but Michael the local tree man advises that they too have the dreaded dieback.  We (and the neighbours) got him to remove some of the lower branches on those two, to reduce the overhang on the drive and veg beds, resulting in a lot more light coming in, especially now that the leaves have fallen.  I hope that next year's veggies will benefit as a result!  However we have heeded Michael's warnings, and have told him to come back in the spring and take out 'our' ash alongside the drive, before it becomes too dangerous.  It would cause a lot of damage if it fell, regardless of where it landed; it would hit either our house or garage, or the neighbours' house or garage, or the overhead electricity wires.  It's sad - but it would open up other opportunities for planting.  That's the natural cycle of things in any garden.

The most prominent of the other trees at the moment is the apple tree, which still has a lot of big apples on it in addition to the windfalls beneath; it's a magnet for the fieldfares, starlings and blackbirds, and I've seen smaller birds, even bluetits, feeding on the apples as well.  We have plenty of apples in store for the coming months for ourselves, and to share with the birds during the cold months.

Speaking of cold, the first snow of the winter is forecast for the end of this week; probably not very much, but after a largely dark and murky November it would be a welcome change.