Ash

Back blipped on 18 March 2023

The first few weeks we were here, the weather was dry and settled and there were colourful sunsets most evenings.  I have photographed and blipped this solitary ash tree before, growing in an old and gappy hedge line at the top of the scarp or cliff, looking down across the pastures and arable fields of the flat Vale of York.  Previously I have been here in the early morning with Gus as the sun rose over the Wolds and eventually illuminated the village below us.  This time it was sunset and, of course, I was without Gus, the walk up the hill across rough ground and grassland was well beyond him.

With ash dieback here as everywhere now, I worry for this tree and all the other ash trees that are such an important part of the landscapes of the Vale and the Wolds.  It seems that we will eventually lose almost all of our ash trees to the disease, leaving the landscape almost bereft of hedgerow trees.  There are very few oaks left here with so many having been cut down but not replaced during the World Wars.  Elm trees disappeared with Dutch Elm disease, and now are only found as hedgerow bushes (we have them in the old hedge around our front garden).   We need a campaign to plant and manage new trees in the landscape.