Paul in the woods

You say dieback, if you mean Hymenoscyphus fraxineus it's not the fruiting bodies of that. I've not seen it but I'd suggest looking at Perenniporia fraxinea. There's a thread here and if you google it there's other pics:

Those or common funnels or similar, hard to be sure from the photos. They look a bit pale to me for tawny funnels but could be washed out a bit. I like to have a close look at the gils and possibly do a spore print (place one gills down on a black piece of paper/card for a few hours). If you look here you will see you should be looking for a creamy-white print. Lepista flaccida, Tawny Funnel, identification WWW.FIRST-NATURE.COM

It looks more like a disease than deer damage to me. I've seen a lot of fraying damage by roe bucks and it tends to be higher and the bark is rubbed off.

I've done a bit of planting and faced the hoards of critters wanting to eat them. Firstly, at least in this part of Devon, spring seems to always have a long dry period so I'd strongly suggest getting the trees planted early in the season well before spring. I hate spiral tree guards, I've got some that haven't been removed when they should and they merge in to the trees causing all sorts of damage. The ones I've used must be biodegradable but they become very brittle in a year or two and are very hard to remove without shards getting everywhere. Funilly enough we have a very large field vole population (you can often see them running about) but I've not actually seen any vole damage to the trees I've planted. (We do have a large population of tawny owls and kestrels). I'd second the idea of posts to encourage them in, even the kestrels like to have a rest and survey the fields. We also have a few hares, including a leveret that spent most of a summer in our fruit bed and apart from one branch he didn't cause any damage. Deer on the other hand can be a real nuisance. Not just going along a row of trees and nibbling all the fresh shoots but the bucks freying. But even this can be variable, our current roe buck and doe do far less damage than previous ones.

Shaggy inkcaps by the looks of the. https://www.wildfooduk.com/mushroom-guide/shaggy-inkcap/

You're just across the channel from me and we have a similar problem with the ash. Don't you have much oak and beech around there and alder in the wetter parts?

If you're going to pull his chain you should get his name right! @Rough Hewn

I've not seen them in the flesh but I would thing they are Veiled Oysters, Pleurotus dryinus. Look's like it's not that common a find.

Possibly Shaggy Scalycap, Pholiota squarrosa. Worth looking at the stem to see if it matches. Pholiota squarrosa, Shaggy Scalycap Mushroom WWW.FIRST-NATURE.COM

You may need to confirm where you are, i.e. England, Scotland etc. Assuming England you can read up on the law here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tree-preservation-orders-and-trees-in-conservation-areas#dead-trees-and-branches

That's probably the best set of pictures I've seen. Worth downloading a copy as these documents have a habbit of moving about! Looks like some of the trees around here also have Phytophthora syringae which I didn't know about.

The was a piece in the Small Woods magazine a while back about non-Hymenoscyphus fraxineus ash dieback. I was referring to the fact ash doesn't always look good, especially where it has been planted in the wrong place or where it's growing at the extremes of it's range. I would be surprised if the trees in the OPs post didn't have Hymenoscyphus fraxineus but whether it's the main cause of their state is not easy to say. Each year I've found our ash trees to behave a bit differently, last year many of the badly affected trees seemed to recover to some extent late on in the year but this year there's quite a few that have looked very poorly and some have now died. Thankfully a few look unaffected.

Interesting, I thought they would be inundated and reading their page they say: "Please note that not all reports will be followed up directly" and "We would encourage you only to report suspected cases of Chalara dieback of ash in new (unshaded) areas on the following map " Might be worth doing to see what happens. Funnily enough they don't have where I live shaded on their map and it's been around here for several years.

Did you look under the cap to see the stem and pores? At a guess I would say some type of suillis (a bolete), perhaps something like Suillus granulatus which is mycorrhizal but I've no idea what might be associated with redwood.

It's not bay, the buds are wrong and the leaf stalks too long for bay. The buds do look oak like but on such a small plant I wouldn't hazard a guess as to which one.

It's frustrating that there isn't a clear guide to id ash die back and distinguish it from other disease and problems with ash. I've got 1000s of ash on my land and I'm sure it has dieback (some trees completely dead now) but I've yet to see the small fruiting bodies you get told to look out for. Like your trees some of mine are grown in windy areas or in waterlogged soil so show signs of poor form and early leaf loss. What I gather is a sure sign is the diamond shaped lesions on stems and trunks. I didn't see any for a few years but now often find them on trees I take out. Some fairly good pics are here: The Chilterns AONB - News WWW.CHILTERNSAONB.ORG

I have a few trees a bit like that on my woodland. I would guess it's either damage from a stake, damage from deer (I've got a stone pine in a large pot recovering well from having a large chunk of bark frayed off by a roe buck) or a large side branch being removed. Here's a pick of one of mine, probably about 30 years old.

Assuming the poster is in the UK then it would be very unliekly to be Xylella. I would grow olives in the UK in free draining soil in full sun. Just checking the RHS advice ( https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=138 ) it says waterlogging can be a problem and cause root rotting. Are you sure they are dead, olives can regrow from seemingly dead wood.

Any pics? Where are they, what soil are they planted in (not too wet etc), any signs of disease, any damage etc?

See p4 in this tread: https://arbtalk.co.uk/forums/topic/119667-stihl-500i-mods/page/4/ (Or read the instruction booklet).

https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/puss-moth Does sounds a likely suspect.

That's why I asked, the pop hawk moth 'pillars often eat some willows. Looking at the colouring though I'd guess elephant hawk moth and the 'pillars feed on bedstraws and willow herb so worth knowing what was growing around the tree.

I know you get clothes moths but didn't think anything ate synthetic rope. Looks like some form of hawk moth, anoying but rather interesting. What tree did you take down?

Do you always pay the full price on a new car, chipper or whatever or haggle? It could be that the person wants to make sure they've got the best price and if you say you can't lower it they're happy that they've asked.