Cherry plum

There's a line of old cherry plum trees near me in the "nature reserve" aka the dog walk. It was planted as a hedge but has grown into a line of trees. A few years ago I noticed that a lot of them had ominous green crosses sprayed on their trunks, and when I checked I found that the plan was to cut them back into a hedge. I wrote a letter of protest to the Council. They would have ended up as a line of stumps. No-one replied but they were not cut down.
The scented blossom is lovely, and one time I was able to get enough fruit - some yellow, some red- to make jam.