Is this Walnut about to Die?

[Peasgood]

Have you not heard the saying?

A woman, a whelp (dog) and a walnut tree,

For a good beating the better they be.

 

I don't hold with animal cruelty or domestic violence but that tree does look like it wants a good beating.

The effect is to knock off all the dead wood.

[Billhook]

Have you not heard the saying?

A woman, a whelp (dog) and a walnut tree,

For a good beating the better they be.

 

I don't hold with animal cruelty or domestic violence but that tree does look like it wants a good beating.

The effect is to knock off all the dead wood.

 

The trouble is that although the branches look dead, covered in lichen, they are in fact still alive.

 

I have heard the rhyme and never thought it was anything but somebody trying to be clever. However of all the many walnut trees on the farm, some of which are fine looking "balanced" trees, the one that has produced the most fantastic walnuts is a smaller tree on a windswept field boundary which leans over at about 30 degrees and which I have caught by mistake with the plough on several occasions. So it has had a beating.

The walnuts are too big for most nutcrackers.

 

The tree in the photo always yielded plenty of much smaller mean little walnuts which the rooks enjoyed before we had time to collect them

[Mick Dempsey]

Bump.

I was reminded of this thread when I came home from a trip abroad for a week.

The smaller walnut on the right is the one which does not come into full leaf till mid June, every year I'm convinced it's dying, in full leaf now, happy as Larry.

It's neighbour hasn't fared so well and went over in my absence.

[Mick Dempsey]

Close up of the failure.