agg221

OK, several observations. The tree appears to be generally in good health. There is reasonable extension growth and it looks a decent enough colour. Given the size, I would agree that it is 60+ years old. The garden plants round the base shouldn't cause any problems. I think I can see mint and violas (is that grass wheat?). Trying to avoid compaction around the roots is also good. The size suggests it is probably on Quince A stock which has been standard for a long time. I was looking for a graft line but can't see one. That may mean the soil level has risen a bit. The bigger risk is that the pear has rooted into the ground. This will help it grow a whole lot bigger! I would be inclined to do some cautious excavation to see what is going on there. I am not sure it is fireblight. I think canker looks more likely. If you work your way down the shoots which have died, you should find where the canker is as a patch of damaged bark which goes right round. Either way, cutting these right out is the best move, below the damage, to a good sideshoot or a bud if they are young enough. It's an interesting shape. You have quite a few choices with it - given that it could have more than a century to go, there is plenty of time to re-grow it into whatever shape you want. You could gradually turn it back into an espalier (as many layers as you want), or round it out as a bush form, or make it a pyramid. It depends how much work you want to put into it. Happy to go through how to get towards any of them - but it will take you several years. I have been gradually re-shaping some complete messes of trees since 1988 and they are looking OK now! Pears fruit on spurs. You seem to have a reasonable number, although it has been cut back a fair bit in the past (not necessarily a bad thing) so there is more young growth than you might expect. Flowers but lack of fruit suggests either frost, birds taking the blossom or a lack of pollinator. If you have space for a pollinating partner it would help a lot. It could be a considerably smaller tree - 6-8ft and about 3ft wide is achievable for a freestanding pyramid. Again, if you want to go that route, happy to offer some thoughts. Alec

Yep.

It's actually Lake Tarapoto, next to the Amazon in Colombia. The temperature was rather similar to that Big J was describing in Sweden but that's all year round and the humidity is 100%. Quite an experience though. Alec

Hi Greg, Would you be able to put up some photos? Ideally a shot showing the whole tree with something for scale, and one showing the damage you think is fireblight including a close-up of the leaves. It would also be useful to get an idea of the diameter of the trunk, with a photograph right down at ground level. From that it should be possible to give you some ideas of what might be the problem(s) and what might be possible. Alec

Rutland Water in February would be pretty hardy! Cambodia isn't a bad guess and the climate was similar but it wasn't there. Much more remote (even than Rutland!). Alec

Well, since you don't mind derails to other wild swimming, this was my most recent location, back in February 2020. Anyone care to guess where? Alec

We have. Someone (maybe you?) suggested it was a diversion for the Ninky Nonk. Alec

There is one of those signs on the road at the end of our land. I will have to go down there with something to scrape off the 'ing'. Alec

I think of it a bit like getting your children to sweep the chimney. They love it really 😄

It would certainly be a distinctive look, wouldn't it!

The Volvo enjoys it really - makes it feel like there is a purpose to its existence. I have been borrowing my wife's Midget more during the past year what with mainly working from home. I can't think of a way to get the same amount in to that! Alec

Round our way 'road closed' usually means they are digging up a manhole, have put some barriers round it but don't want to rely on warning lights at night so it's much easier to close several miles of road. It does remind me though of a few years ago when I was driving back from King's Lynn, joined the A10 and it said it was closed, follow diversion. The diversion looked to be miles out of my way so I took a back road to bypass the first couple miles and then re-joined it. Signs still said closed at the entry but the road wasn't blocked and there was a crossroads at the end so I could always go straight on instead. 'Closed' turned out to be that they had dug the whole road up right down to the hardcore for a 5 mile stretch, but there were no workers and it was a hire car so not my suspension. It certainly saved an enormous detour, but the tractor coming the other way at the far end did look a bit surprised to see me! Alec

Some people clearly like their music vanilla. I was hopeful following the suggestion of George Formby playing the works of Wagner but sadly it was not to be. I strongly suspect we will indeed meet again on the mental health thread. For some reason this sprang to mind:

If you can't appreciate Cradle of Filth playing the works of Vivaldi then you sir are a Philistine!

I always preferred the George Formby grill myself - "I'm grilling on a lamb-chop at the corner of the street" etc. Alec

Cometh the hour, cometh the man (or woman) one hopes. If you remember the 1980s with Thatcher through to Major in the 1990s the government was very tired and stale and what was needed was a breath of fresh air. I don't remember even having heard of Tony Blair much before the election and, if you focus on the first term only, Labour brought that. The second term is best not discussed. The coalition government also had some good ideas and showed that it could work in principle. Compromising on tuition fees was what did for the Lib Dems but that first term again was, in my opinion, a success. This government has become a mess. My guess is that Keir Starmer will go quietly in a couple of years, probably to a sensible shadow ministerial role (he would make a good Home Secretary given that he actually understands the issues within the justice system) and if that happens I think there is a good chance that someone we haven't really heard of may come to the fore. There are a couple of contenders who dropped into the background during the Corbyn era and didn't care to make their move at the start of a parliament. It would be good to see the Conservatives go back into opposition for a term to sort themselves out and quietly deal with the cronyism which is currently rife. I haven't tested this statement, but it is my strong impression that there are significantly more people from wealthy public school backgrounds in the Cabinet now than there were in the 1980s which is hardly a positive step in having a government which is representative of the people. Alec

He used to, yes, but he stopped at least 10yrs ago and according to him it hasn't made much difference. The elms are all through the village around his estate, including roadside through the village, on both the road to Huntingdon, the road to King's Ripton and out of the village heading north. There are some good ones down Moat Lane too. The best specimens are probably the ones in the garden of Abbott's Ripton Hall. Pre-COVID the gardens were opened once a year for a garden show which was a good day out in its own right and I particularly enjoyed seeing the elms. Hopefully they will start doing it again at some point. Alec

You don't happen to live near Abbott's Ripton do you? There are a spectacular number of elms around there. Alec

Yes it is due to the protection applied to the varieties which is a mix of Plant Breeders' Rights and patents. You can only legally propagate under licence or for research purposes which is why most of the trees available in the UK have been imported. Alec

First, simple answers to the questions arising. 1. However carefully you move and protect an elm sapling, it will still be susceptible to Dutch Elm Disease (DED) but see below. 2. Yes, laying a hedge will reduce susceptibility to DED if you also keep it trimmed - see below. 3. There are some resistant cultivars you can buy in the UK but they are expensive, however see below! The long answer: DED progression is dependent on three things - the presence of the fungus, the elm bark beetle which carries its spores (vector) and the elm. If you have any two from three you don't have a disease problem. No elms and the beetle and fungus die out. No beetle and the fungus cannot infect the trees as it is reliant on the beetle to carry it. No fungus and the beetle is not a problem in its own right. Australia has mature English Elm taken there by the colonists but no fungus so no DED. Not sure if it has the beetle but I presume so. No elms - the beetle can fly up to 2 miles in search of food so if there is more than a 2 mile break in elms then the beetle cannot get across it and elms the other side are not infected. Brighton is reasonably separated which is why the council can keep on top of the infection. This means if you have a single tree in West Cork, separated from all other elms by miles, it might survive a long time. There are some large elms around Marylebone church and on Marylebone High Street - they are completely cut off from other elms by tall buildings so they survive. The fungus is not sentient. It infects and spreads and fruits and dies. It does not originate with Ulmus minor which is why there is so little resistance. The tree does not notice the invading fungus at first, By the time it does, the fungus is down in the trunk, the tree then walls it off and in the process it walls off everything above and the tree dies above ground but because elm can sucker, it often grows back from the roots. If the fungus gets into the roots, the whole tree (and any it has root grafted to) dies. The beetle is sentient. It makes choices - which direction to fly, which elm it prefers etc. The beetle prefers to fly at 6m above the ground. Its purpose is feeding and its preference is to feed at a leaf axil, where the leaf meets the stem. It likes upright shoots as the angle is more convenient for it to stand on. This means that given the choice the beetle will feed on fairly strong young shoots growing upwards at 6m above the ground. If there are trees that meet those criteria then the beetles will feed on these and leave the others alone. That means smaller trees, trees with weeping habit etc will be left longer. The beetle prefers Ulmus minor to Ulmus glabra (Wych elm) so if both are present in the landscape the Wych elm will last longer, but once infected it is just as susceptible and dies. The beetle detects the chemical signature of the elm (essentially smell) to find them. This means if you have species such as Ulmus laevis which lack the chemical signature (don't smell of elm) the beetle does not find them. If you inject them with DED then they die just the same. The above raises the question of what is resistance. There are two types of resistance - field resistance and true resistance. Field resistance means that if you plant a tree in an area where there is DED it won't die, but that could be for many reasons including not being the choice of the beetle. True resistance means that if you inject the tree with DED it will not die. This is not a digital situation. At one extreme, nothing happens, then maybe the leaves adjacent to the injection site die, then the twig, then the branch, then the main branch, then the whole thing. It's all about how far the infection progresses before it gets walled off. English Elm which is a single variety of Ulmus minor (or a micro species if you believe in such things) is particularly low in resistance. In East Anglia there are many naturally occurring varieties, there is a reasonable case for thinking it may be native, and some of them show high levels of field resistance. Several countries, notably The Netherlands, France, Italy and Spain have run breeding programmes for resistant elms. This means if you inject them with DED they do not show any significant damage. These programmes have worked by cross-breeding with elm species of Asian origin which are naturally resistant to DED as they co-exist. This has been successful and there are around 20 varieties available with enough resistance that you can be confident they will survive to maturity. The exception is the Spanish programme. This was the last one to start and they decided they would initiate the programme by selecting native Spanish strains with some natural resistance and breeding Asian genes into them. During the screening phase they surveyed 10,000 trees and (much to their surprise) found seven which had such high natural resistance that they did not need to cross-breed. At present in the UK, some of the Dutch and French varieties are available commercially. Some of the Italian ones were but there was an issue and they were withdrawn and are unlikely to become available again. The Spanish varieties are occasionally available bare-root as whips in winter but post-Brexit this may no longer be possible as they were imported in a container rather than propagated here. There is an intention to propagate in the UK but it is proving very difficult to have the right conversations to secure propagation rights. This is a combination of Brexit and COVID. If it can be done, there are several people ready and waiting to start. All seven varieties are in the UK (there are several people including myself who have all seven) and they can be multiplied fairly fast once this becomes possible. So in summary - if you live a long way from any other elms, you could risk anything. If you keep yours short by laying and trimming then the beetles will prefer something else and probably leave yours alone and if you want to plant new ones, there are some available which will do well if you want a couple of specimen trees, or you will need to wait a few more years for the Spanish ones to become available as whips. Alec

OK, I can't see any signs of silverleaf (or false silverleaf) so the tree is not doomed. Silverleaf would kill it; false silverleaf would be a sign of severe stress but the remaining growth looks reasonably healthy apart from what I agree is probably a bit of aphid damage. There is even some decent extension growth. There might be a clue in that cluster of dead and mummified leaves near the fruit in the bottom image. It's worth a look amongst them to see whether there are any dead flowers in there too. Either way, I would be leaning towards brown rot as the problem. Taking out all the dead is a good start. I wouldn't worry too much about what shape you then end up with - just leave anything which is alive for the moment. If it is brown rot then it only goes in through the flowering growth so as the head re-forms it should be OK. It can then be shaped up with some formative pruning. Unlike sweet cherries (Prunus avium) which forms permanent fruiting spurs, Morellos (Prunus cerasus) fruit on last year's extension growth only. This causes them to get progressively more leggy and weaker, and hence vulnerable. They do benefit from a bit of annual pruning to take a few of the long, bare extension branches back each year to keep a steady supply of new growth. This one is relatively young so almost certainly on Colt rootstock but they can still live a fairly long time - Colt was introduced in the 1970s and trees are still going strong. One of the Morellos at Mum's place in Kent was down to only about 4' high with the top snapped out and only one live branch on a completely hollow trunk when we moved in in 1988. It is still there and now has a decent round head again (obviously still hollow). That was planted in 1919. Alec

Definitely elm - asymetric base to the leaf. Round here we still have a lot of large trees. Also busy planting disease resistant ones - it won't look much in my lifetime but should be good for future generations. Alec

Please could you get a picture or two. What I really need to see is: Whether there is any damage to the trunk, anywhere around it. Morellos are not particularly prone to bacterial canker but they can get it so that is what I would be looking for. Whether there are bunches of brown, withered flowers and leaves on a lot of the branch ends. If so, that is brown rot (the same as you get in apples). It's fungal and used to be easily dealt with on an annual basis using Bordeaux mixture before that got banned. If you have PA1 + 6 then there are modern alternative fungicides available. Whether the remaining leaves look normal or silvery. If silvery, cutting off a recently dead branch and looking for a purple stain will tell you whether it is silverleaf or false silverleaf (a sign of stress). Anything which is definitely dead will need to come off. Now is a good time to do it - anywhere between April and August but you are currently bang in the middle of the range. I would try and figure out what the problem is first though, as if it is treatable then it is worth the effort of pruning (they do grow back, from very little left) or whether it is time to remove it. Alec

I did but I can't remember I'm afraid. My neighbour is in to such things and found it in one of his reference books. It was something quite obscure dating from the mid-1970s. How it ended up in my river I have no idea! Alec