Ancient Trees

Was talking to a friend in New Orleans about Ancient Trees earlier, thought i'd get a thread going on it as its winter here now.

The UK has the largest percentage of Ancient Trees in Europe. Trees that we take for granted are a rareity on the Continent.

How to estimate the age of your trees, sorry, I hate PDF files, but this is a short one.

http://wbrc.org.uk/atp/Estimating Age of Oaks - Woodland Trust.pdf

Getting involved in recording Ancient Trees,

http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/

And, this is against GC rules, so feel free to report me, but a link to another forum.

http://frontpage.woodland-trust.org.uk/ancient-tree-forum/

 

This tree is less than an hour away from me ...

http://www.revistayvi.com/index.php...de-portugal&catid=5:ambiente&Itemid=6&lang=en

 

Just had an ID of our ancient pear from the Brogdale collection. It's a Chaumontel pear, seems to have been established in early 19th Cent.

 

C'mon Dave, 2000 years has to better 200, doesn't it?

We apparently have a very old Carob tree as well ... but it is a mere 600 years old ...

http://www.algarve123.com/en/Artigos/1-446/Algarve_tem_arvore_mais_antiga_de_Portugal

 

We can at least eat the fruit Vicky

 

I love Carob, spent many an hour cutting the good bits out of the beans after biting into one that was already occupied by ants

 

Reported!

 

I'll give you that one, Dave.

Zigs, I am currently inundated with Carobs as there is a tree at the rear of the caravan/cabin. I can't be bothered to collect them and sell them for €5 a sack.

 

I love trees - beautiful things

 

Me too. We need a lot more of them. If I was the boss of the UK, I'd put policies in place that would result in the natural regeneration of the North Yorks Moors and other such areas of once great forest. It always amazes me that people campaign so hard to keep the 'outstanding natural beauty' of areas that have been stripped almost bare of the original flora, and then kept that way by allowing great flocks of non-native livestock to eat anything that tries to grow.

That said, I'll climb down off my soap box now

 

Are sheep non-native? Where are they from?

 

I think they were brought in from the middle east centuries ago if I'm not mistaken. Along with that most destructive of 'native' mammals, the fluffy bunny (brought here from Afghanistan for their fur).

 

Think the Soay Sheep were the first to be introduced, more like Goats than the Sheep we have now.

It would be in our best interests to turn areas like that back to woodlands, we'll appreciate it when the oil runs out.

 

I too adore trees. We are lucky to have a small wood (very old Scots Pine and Beech mainly). We seem to have to fight a continual battle with the likes of the energy and water companies who seem to see trees as a enemy. If a branch of our trees are within about 50 ft of power lines then a chainsaw massacre ensures, however we battle hard and have stopped too much slaughter. The water company wanted to dig a 8ft deep trench within 6ft of a row on ancient Beech trees a couple of years ago and I reckon if we hadn't stopped them we'd have lost the lot. Luckily there are rules and regs regarding digging near trees which the water company had conveniently forgotten about. We reminded them! So after much tooth sucking/being sworn at the trench was diverted into a field Hopefully while I'm still around my trees will be left in peace but I shouldn't really have to fight for their survival should I? The Ash tree problem is another threat we like many could do without. Who said living in the countryside was peaceful!?