Alan Titchmarsh

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...muppet-over-countryside-comments-8395497.html

Owen Paterson:

 

Seems to me, at face value of what I read in that article, that Alan is right. I know lots of people in rural parts, and they all say the same thing, they are effectively 'on their own'. Also when diary farmers are only just breaking even by claiming every grant and subsidy available while getting paid 9p per litre for milk, seems they're neglected too. And as for the Ash dieback, I seem to recall reading that the government was alerted to the problem months before it reached the UK, and they did what they usually do, nothing.

 

Drove past the big dairy farm at the foot of Burrow Hill yesterday. Not a Moo Moo in sight

 

Not quite nothing .... our local council has to replace a large number of large trees which are dying in our local park .... they ordered Ash to replace them

They've only recently has a rethink

 

Maybe this time they will go for horse chestnut?

 

I think it's 20- 25p per litre

 

What about bleeding canker? Loads of it round here.

 

Are all the trees doomed?

 

No need to swear Scrungee.




That was kind of my point.

Its starting to seem that way.
But then is it something to do with our meddling and not allowing natural selection to be the main source of propagation.

 

The local NT place (so I assume all others also) is now considering the long term implications of climate change before planting any trees, let alone what diseases might be about.

 

I'd love to be in the National trust meeting to tell them the only true British native tree that survived the last glaciation & will be capable of surviving the next one is the Reticulated Willow

A low growing Willow (100mm) that clung on on the mountain peaks while the ice flowed all around it.