Paul in the woods

I wouldn't say that tree.has obvious signs of dieback, just looks poorly grown and the damage at the base done by garden machinery or similar. I would expect to see some epicormic growth growing from the trunk and thicker branches if it has ADB (vigorous long straight shoots) and some dead wood in the crown. Having said that, ash is also susceptible to other diseases such as canker and with the base as it is I would consider removal and planting something more suitable if near houses.

I would be very careful with ferns, fiddleheads are a north american fern which isn't native over here. I didn't think our native ferns were edible.

That explains it, as sime42 says, Leylandii or similar. Burns ok, there's a thread on here about seasoning it. Smell might help to identify exactly what it is if in doubt.

Any smell? Looks like a conifer of some sort.

Are you sure it's Spartan, some of the cheap trees I bought don't match up with the varieties they should be. It's a good apple to give to people and shouting "This is SPARTAN!"

I think that's a mix of quite a few things. You might be better off asking a local tree surgeon if they could let you pick up something specific. Or put a rough location up and see if anyone local could help. If you were near me I'd collect whatever you wanted from my woodland and could tell you what everything was. (Apologies for all the other jokes, at least you didn't mention cod).

I suppose you were mascaraed for life.

She's the beautiful female, the handsome smaller chap often shared her bin. She often reared up and hissed which was a bit of a surprise. They spent a couple of months moving between a couple of bins and laid their eggs and we also had several slow worms in the same bin. I tend to pile up material, mix it, then pop in the bins. They then get left until winter before emptying.

My bins can look after themselves....

In an ideal world I'd like several large bays I could pile up loads of material in, something that would get hot enough to dispose of a body or two... At the moment I make do with I think about 8 daleks, and happily put all my grass cuttings in them along with other waste without problems, although much of the grass is long so more like mulched straw. My main problem is getting enough material as we have quite poor soil so need more compost than we can make.

I tend to find runner beans freeze better than french, also I compost, or leave for seed, anything even remotely stringy. I can highly recommend runner bean seeds dried, then soaked and cooked like other dried beans, and used in soups, chillies etc. Anyone mention snails yet, a good source of food and often plentiful...

I suppose he would say that but European Hornets are normally no trouble at all. We get them all the time, often having to shepherd them out the house and they nest regularly about the place and they've never stung anyone. Obviously if you're likely to react badly to stings then I would be more cautious but my honey bees are far worse than hornets or wasps. I would urge anyone in the UK to contact the BBKA or your local bee keeping group if you suspect Asian Hornets. It should be easy to get hold of someone who can identify them and help eradicate them if they are the invasives.

I know it's hard to tell from photos but that tree doesn't look to be badly affected by ash die back to me, certainly not as bad as many of my trees. It doesn't look great, looks like canker on the stem, but I would say there a fair bit of life left in it. Still curious to see what the outcome of a phone call would achieve...

I think it's an earth ball, often confused with puff balls but not edible and considered toxic. Earthballs WWW.WILDFOODUK.COM There are four types of Earthball in the UK, Common Earthball (Scleroderma citrinum), Leopard Earthball (Scleroderma areolatum), Potato Earthball (Scleroderma bovista) and Scaly...

You can buy the traps from the various bee supply companies, such as Thornes. There's some useful info about the hornets here: https://www.bbka.org.uk/pages/category/asian-hornet-resources I know it's a serious topic but I did notice this and thought it was amusing: Asian Hornet Costume | British Beekeepers Association WWW.BBKA.ORG.UK The BBKA have commissioned an Asian Hornet costume which is currently in the process of being made. Create attention at shows and other events to raise awareness about Asian...