This week it’s been necessary to remove 3 Ash trees from the small wooded area next to the East Court entrance at the bottom of Blackwell Hollow. The Ash trees were suffering from a disease known as “Ash dieback” and were slowly succumbing. Ash dieback is predicated to affect 80% of the Ash trees in the UK, radically changing our landscape as it progresses.
In an ideal world we would leave such affected trees to die, and fall to the ground naturally, and in doing so, as they rotted down, they would provide a valuable habitat for insects, birds and mammals. These 3 trees were close to the pavement and road though, and would in time have become hazard – hence the need to fell and remove them.
It’s always sad to lose any tree, but the open space created by their removal will quickly become filled by other species.