Talkback: Ash tree dieback

Seems daft to import them in the first place. Hundreds, maybe thousands get weeded out of my garden every year. 

I'm absolutely devastated - the ash has been a huge part of my life - I spent my childhood in a place called Ashfield - we chose this house largely because of the mature ash trees in the garden - from the looks of things we're right in line for the disease to affect us soon 

Unfortunately, with an airborne fungus, it was always a matter of time. All that we can hope is that some trees are resistant.

We live about 10 miles from Wragby, Lincolnshire a place where the fungus has been found. It is an very wooded area, and on our way to Lincoln, a distance of about 2 miles, we estimated that 7 out of 10 trees are Ash.It will be catastophic if the virus spreads to our area, as it will to any part of the country, there would be very few native trees left.

I think the trouble now with diseases,plant or human,is there is to much mobility of people and also bringing into the country of so man imported goods from aboard .There can never be enough checks and once here, when is it spotted?,often when its too late.I know some are air born and that cant be stopped but with the movement of people and goods its becoming a big problem to eradicate and control the spread of the disease.

Some latest news

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/ash-dieback-government-plans-crisis-talks-101356005.html

I am particularly concerned about one of our ash trees as there were two or three small branches with leaves that shrivelled and died earlier this year.  

We had an arboriculturist do some work on both trees 12 months ago and he remarked that one of the trees was less healthy than the other, and had a bit of dieback, but he was referring to the 'ordnary' ash dieback which has been endemic in the UK for some time.  

Now the leaves have fallen there is no way I can identify which branches were affected, and they're too high up for me to check for lesions, so there's nothing I can do until next year.  

If only the government had taken this seriously earlier and publicised it I would have been able to have the suspect branches checked out this year, rather than next 

I bought a small Mountain Ash, very cheaply from Morrisons earlier this year, and it hasn't looked particularly healthy or grown very much.  Back in the summer(!!) it did have quite a few ants climbing up it.  I'm wondering if this was an imported tree but maybe I'm just being impatient.

break23 wrote (see)

I bought a small Mountain Ash, very cheaply from Morrisons earlier this year, and it hasn't looked particularly healthy or grown very much.  Back in the summer(!!) it did have quite a few ants climbing up it.  I'm wondering if this was an imported tree but maybe I'm just being impatient.

Mountain ash apparently are not affected-ants climbing a tree are a sign of aphid attack-that might be your problem.

Thanks for that info, maybe it will start performing next year.  I do have two old ash trees at the end of my garden but most of the leaves fell off very early which I thought was due to strong winds and heavy rain - at least I hope that is the reason.

I have been reading about this fungus sadly, it is in Kent too. I have found this uplifting article though:

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/yourtown/wallingford/10044752.The_elite_trees_that_could_save_the_ash/

I hope you are right about the mountain ash not being affected, I have three lovely young trees in my garden, the colour of the leaves has been glorious, burnished copper in the sunshine. There are many mountain ash trees growing in the woodlands around our area and they have looked lovely this autumn.

Mountain Ash isn't really an ash it's a sorbus, different family altogether, so it won't get ash die back.

Is ash die back notifiable does anyone know? 

So where do I stand if one of the Ash trees in my garden / land gets infected? I have several Manchurian Ash trees which are well over 40ft and I'm concerned they might be chopped down against my will. The bottom portion of my garden has a right of way across it and I'm worried the council will just wade in with chain saws...

That is a worry and I'm not sure I can see the point of all the cutting down. It won't remove air blown fungal spores will it.

Yes, Ash Dieback is a notifiable disease - however I believe the current thinking is that mature trees do not need felling unless they become unsafe - it is saplings that are being destroyed.  I understand that there is hope that some ash trees may prove to be resistant so if we don't fell mature trees we'll find out which are resistant and more can be propagated from them.

Sounds a bit 'thrashing around blindly' to me