Ashes to ashes

The three big ash trees round our boundary are all suffering from ash dieback.  While the one next to our driveway was the least affected, it was the only one that was actually ours, the others belonging to owners of neighbouring land.  If it fell, as it probably would have done at some point, it would have landed either on our house, our garage, the neighbours' house and garage, or the overhead electricity wires that run past our property.  None of those options would have been good.  

Last day of the tree

So we finally managed to engage Michael the local tree-man to cut it down; a sad decision, but a necessary one.  It involved a very large cherry-picker to deal with the higher branches (that's the red thing in the 'before' photo).  Suddenly the view from the kitchen window is a lot lighter, and currently dominated by a very large pile of firewood; that should see us through a winter or three.  And the smaller branches produced a load of woodchip, which I'm using to renew the paths in the veg plot.

Afterwards

The stump is still there - realistically it was just going to be too difficult to grind it out - and from a quick count of the rings I reckon the tree was about 150 years old.  You can see the dark patches where the dieback had taken hold, and some of the firewood has nasty-looking bits in where the wood was affected.  The stump will become some sort of feature until it rots away; once the area has been cleared of sawdust (I can find a use for that too), I'll need to clear it of weeds and give some thought to how to plant if up.  It will now be considerably sunnier than in the past, though the tree roots mean that only the tiniest seedlings, or seed, can go in there, which limits the options.

As for the other trees, we're making noises to the owners about removal; neither of them would hit the house (just) if/when they fall, but they would make a big mess of most of the garden.  Sorry, trees - and the wildlife that enjoys them - but the alternatives aren't good either.