More tree-felling

I'm glad I referred to the NPT web-site before I set off for a long-delayed meeting again with Friends of Craig Gwladus for their regular monthly maintenance morning. Fungal diseases of trees seem to be on the increase these days - warmer damper weather helping their spread, perhaps? - so one has to accept the council's reasons for closing the park while felling takes place and their assurances that replacement broadleaved saplings will be planted. The candidates for replacement must be restricted: ash is obviously out, elm has not yet generated immunity from so-called Dutch elm disease and there must be worries about oak. So far, the ancient oaks in the park seem to have been free of oak decline but the risk of introducing the disease on imported saplings would be too great.