Ash trees threatened

The ash is one of my favourite trees. It is also one of the commonest trees in British woodlands. Unfortunately it is now threatened by ash dieback disease caused by the Chalera fraxinus fungus,. This disease has already done a lot of damage in continental Europe, killing up to 90% of ash trees in Denmark for example.

The British government has known of this disease for a while and logic and common sense would have dictated that we should ban the import of ash trees to prevent the disease reaching our shores. (Why do we need to import ash trees anyway? It's not as though we're short of our own!). Well, a ban is now in place since Monday, but that might be too late as the disease has already been found in trees in parts of England. The disease has been confirmed in a number of woodlands in England including a  Woodland Trust woodland in Suffolk and in Scotland too. Because of the delay in implementing the ban, it may be that thousands of trees near the sites of infection will be destroyed to prevent the disease spreading. George Monbiot writes in the Guardian about the politics behind the delayed ban, while Tobias Jones writes, also in the Guardian about his feelings about the ash tree. 

Hopefully the disease has been caught early enough to prevent it devastating our ash trees.

It was beautifully sunny on Friday so I wandered through Princes Street Gardens, in the centre of Edinburgh, to take photos of some of my favourite ash trees.

And a closer look at an ash tree in Dalry Cemetery, showing the ash keys and the distinctive black buds.

We don't want to lose these magnificent trees from our landscape.

Weaver of Grass also recently blogged about ash dieback.

Gabriel Hemery shares some lovely photos of ash trees in Yorkshire.

For Nature Notes

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I am the contributing poet to Daily Haiku this week, you can read today's haiku here. 

I'm delighted to have a haiku in the Haiku News anthology which will be out soon, you can pre-order your copy here.

I'm also delighted to have a poem in the current issue of Misty Mountain Review.

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