Otto77

Thank you for your reply. I've asked the owner of the tree. Over the past years a gardener has indeed raised the soil about 30 cm by repeatedly topping it up with (a lot of) compost. I guess the tree will have to be removed. Shame.

Hi, Does anyone have an idea what could be wrong with this lime tree? On the side where the black stuff is, there are hardly any small roots left. Could this be phytophtora? I think it could be, but I've not come across it before. I think the mushrooms are not the cause, but I've included them anyway Thanks

Hi Karen, I wouldn't worry to much about the dogs. The meripilus giganteus isn't poisonous. In fact, in some countries it's eaten, when the mushroom is still quite young. Once it gets older, apparantly it doesn't taste that good, but it's not dangerous. As far as I know you can't really remove the fungus, as it probably stretches throughout the soil. As long as there is nutrition for it to be found, it will stay there. Hope this helps

I think honey fungus could definitely be the cause of this damage. What worries me most is that the tree doesn't seem to have any compensation growth at the edges of the damage, and it hardly seems to seal off the wound edges. However, it does seem to be in good condition, so the infection probably not very deep. If it would be near the house I would probably remove it, but as it doesn't appear to be in a very dangerous spot, I would just keep an eye on it and see if it starts to compensate in growth for the damage, especially around the edges of the wound. Hope this helps a bit. Apologies for any bad English, as I'm from the Netherlands.

Both will quite probably get infected. Over here in the Netherlands ADB is really bad. Especially the young ones are badly affected, most if not all die. For the past couple of years some Ash seemed to recover, but unfortunately that was caused by ADB not coping with a couple of very dry summers, not the trees fighting it off. This year the trees just got hit even harder.