Ash tree vs. Climbers

[Willsa]

A very tall multi-trunk Ash is growing in a neighbour's garden, just behind my back wall. 

Previous residents of the same property had planted a beast of a fast growing vine "Russian Vine" most likely to hide their old air raid shelter/shed from the view (just about visible in the tangled mess after some cutting back) and that was accomplished fully. However, after many years with no pruning, the vine is a 12ft deep thicket and has spread into the Ash and is slowly pulling it down. 

 

The tree has lost all the branches to the weight of the creeper from the lowest two thirds. The remaining top canopy is stressed and patchy and many branches are bowing, about to be snapped off. Many of the leaves are picked to death by wood pigeons - the poor tree is against it! 

 

One of the photos shows two trunks leaning to the left that would fall into my garden (towards the person taking the photo) and a trunk to the right that would decimate a neighbour's garden, shed and possibly his kitchen. 

 

I have tried cutting the vine out of the tree where it overhangs my garden and basically creates a 30ft tall tree-to-ground curtain but it doesn't make any difference when back neighbours let it run up there freely in the first place. 

 

Found out the "neighbour" at the back is a Chinese cororporate landlord. So I wrote to their local appointed agent, who couldn't be less helpful. After initially acknowledging the property and the tree is indeed under their contract, they stopped responding to communications - probably realised the extent of the issue. They did send a young lad out to trim the creeper off the wall and off their bomb shelter but didn't cut it away from the tree or attempt to kill it off, so it's all back to it's former glory. 

 

Taking in account I've notified them of falling branches and the leaning tree and they've done nothing to manage it, will they be seen as negligent and financially responsible when the thing does come down?

 

Anything else that can be/should be done?

 

[Stere]

Looks like it  has ash dieback which is not related to the Russian vine or pigeons. 

 

 

[Willsa]

I thought there might be the possibility of dieback. Haven't seen any black or wilting leaves, only the ones half eaten by pigeons... But can't deny there's plenty of bare twigs with no buds in the first place. 

 

Posting some more pictures in case there's something relevant. 

 

Would it be worth reporting a possibly dangerous tree to the council, particularly if there's any suspicion of dieback? 

 

The actual landlord is an address in a Chinese skyscraper and I doubt I will ever get anywhere with this issue by myself. The state of the country...

[Dan Maynard]

Where are you in the country? A lot of ash trees around us are like that - I'm pretty sure it's not ash dieback but rather drought stress, never really got going this year. We have very little ash dieback locally as the lifecycle of the fungus depends on damp leaf mould.

 

Lower limbs on an ash tree get shaded out and fall off, quite common to have a lot of deadwood if none has been cut out.

 

You'd need a proper assessment to know there's a problem, so far the pictures don't look too bad to me. Get a local arborist to have a look if you're worried.

 

As a general rule, if there is a tree failure which is reasonably foreseeable, then the owners can potentially be held liable. It'd be a fight for the insurers to have, not sure why the council would be interested. Your own insurance might have a legal helpline which could be a good source of information about what they think of the situation.

[Willsa]

I'm in East Yorkshire. 

Just drove up towards Scarborough yesterday and the Dieback is awful around the roads - hundreds of dead and dying trees. 

 

I suppose this solitary Ash would have a good chance of decent health if it was helped along. I read that increasing light and air around the tree can go some way but this one is just getting buried instead. There is Ivy going up another trunk but it's not so fast. 

 

Dunno about the council - they do have powers to enforce action if a tree poses a threat to property or life. But I suspect I'd need to wait for one of the trunks to fall for them to get involved.

Plus, I just put them to task regarding Japanese Knotweed they've spread from their Council owned house so I'm sure my emails would get printed and burnt for good measure 😂 

 

Mostly just wondering what sort of paper trail could be kept to evidence "neglect" rather than "act of god" if the tree was to fail?

Would an Arborist be able to write up some visible faults for a small fee without needing an in-depth tree survey? 

Want to send the maintenance company something so they can't say "we didn't know". 

 

 

 

[Stubby]

We have die back all over Sussex and Hampshire . Most road side and foot path ash have been felled for safeties sake . There are however some groups of trees that seem to have some resistance and appear to be recovering . Slowly each year they have more green on them than previous years . At the moment though they are in the minority .