Community woodland hit by ash dieback
Roger Harvey, owner of Harvey's Garden Plants in Thurston is replanting 150 native trees to replace their affected Ash trees. Roger around his Ash trees with volunteer Barbara Morris
A garden centre in Thurston is planting a community woodland - to replace trees lost to ash dieback disease.
With the help of a team of hard-working volunteers, Harvey’s Garden Plants has planted 140 new saplings funded by the Woodland Trust.
The scheme is part of the trust’s Jubilee Woods Project where six million trees will be planted in celebration of the Queen’s 60 years on the throne.
The native trees including rowan, hazel, royal oak and blackthorne will replace ash trees planted five years ago which owner Roger Harvey suspects have been hit by diease.
Roger said: “We have discovered what we think is ash dieback.
“We planted these trees in 2007 to establish the wood, they included 25 percent ash and 25 percent oak.
“Unfortunately oak now have two diseases that affect them and ash have now got ash dieback to face.
“We have to wait for three weeks to get the results but we are pretty certain the disease is here.
“When we were offered the trees we were originally going to have a new woodland but now we have to replace these lost ash trees.
“They are saying it is endemic, the only hope is to replant our new trees - that is all we can do.
“The reason for the ash dieback being here is that since 2009 five million ash trees have been imported from Europe.
“They have been spread all over the country.
“If you have five million imported trees it is not a case of waiting for the wind to blow to spread the disease - it is already here.”
The community wood, which will be named The Great Green Jubilee Wood, will be open to the public all year round for free. Across the country 60 Diamond Woods of 60 acres are being created along with hundreds of smaller Jubilee Woods.
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Weather for Bury St Edmunds
Tuesday 21 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 6 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
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