“The Tree”

In a classic example of “one thing leading to another” we’ve had to say farewell to the largest tree in our garden. In all honesty it was rather an ugly tree but the point is … it was ‘our ugly tree’.

It all started innocently enough with a dead holly bush which we had analysed only to find out it was killed by ‘honey fungus’. Sounds innocuous enough doesn’t it?

As it turned out : NO – far from it. Honey Fungus can attack and kill a large variety of woody stemmed plants. Holly Trees are supposed to be immune. This could mean the end of of our current Holly Hedge border that we’ve been trying to grow for the last 7 years. OK take a deep breath and move to ‘Garden DefCon 5’.

With alarm bells tinkling and a concern that ‘the tree’ just might also possibly be in danger we called in a tree surgeon to assess what we should do. He in turn looked at the tree and said that it could possibly be in danger as well, plus it was leaning rather badly over the neighbours garden… Oh dear – raise the level to ‘Garden DefCon 4’ and call in a ‘Garden & Tree Structural Engineer’ for an informal 2nd opinion.

He duly arrived and with much scratching of heads and incomprehension as to why 1 holly bush should die of honey fungus in the middle of the rest of the holly hedge along with humming and harring over the precarious nature of our tree – he recommended that it should go – Not what we wanted to hear – raise the level to ‘Garden DefCon 3’.

We then proceeded to mull and convinced ourselves it could probably stay.

Then we took a trip to the garden centre to get a replacement plant for the dead holly – you remember – the bush that started all this. After asking them – plus any man & his dog who happened to be passing by – we got worried again, as they all thought, including the dog, that the tree was highly suspect. Raise the level to ‘Garden DefCon 2’.

We slept on it over the weekend and finally arrived at condition ‘Garden DefCon 1’ – it had to go – action on the tree was imminent – there was a ‘clear & present danger’

So that is the story of the sad demise of our tree, a rather ugly tree but never the less ‘our ugly tree’.

So dear tree we shall think on you kindly as we warm ourselves this winter whist huddled around the burning embers of your once magnificent branches and trunk …