While this topic will be of little interest to some, as a keen gardener I though other “green thumbers” might be interested.
We recently bought a house in the Belconnen area, and one of the many positive aspects of the property were the beautiful mature trees. The main two are a Red Gum and a Claret Ash. When I recently had the gum cleaned up by an arborist (EcoTrees, Adam was brilliant), he said while the gum is coping fairly well, the Claret Ash will sadly be gone well within 4 or 5 years. He explained that it was suffering from dieback from the top down, which is caused by a disease in the tree. He went on to say that the problem has no cure, and it is sadly a problem happening all across Canberra.
Not long after, I was having a chat to my brilliant neighbour, and he told me about a sick Claret Ash thay once had at a previous property. Him and a mate spent a day cutting the tree right back to about a third of it’s size and height – so it was pretty much a long stump sticking out of the ground. While his wife was horrified at the time, they were both stoked a year of so later when it came good and grew back to a healthy tree.
I came across and interesting article on Google (pdf), written by Samantha Titheradge. It explains a little more about the problem – but I am keen to hear about anyone else’s experiences with this unfortunate problem that is specific to Canberra.
Last weekend I hacked the majority of the tree back, which was painful to do, and it now looks horrible. I’m hoping my neighbours luck passes on to us. I still have about 2 metres of the main trunk to cut back this weekend. Giving the arms and legs a rest before attempting to hack through the trunk with a bush saw – I don’t have the experience or confidence to operate a chainsaw 6 or so metres up a tree!
Thoughts, experiences, suggestions my fellow RA’ers?
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