Elm

[ChrisM]

Just a last quick question for now. This is just to gauge a smidgen of the prevalence/availability (or otherwise) of this tree/wood these days.

Do readers of the forum know of any Elm trees, and/or Elms in hedges, maybe thus a little as to their state of health, and of their whereabouts & prevalence at all, within the UK?

Elm is not the easiest to come by after the disease of course. Is it recovering, where is it, how many are there, what is the quality of the plants and/or of their wood, and so on, as of 2009, etc...?

All the Best,

Chris.

 

[Treemonk]

There is tons of elm about but the vast majority of it is smallish diameter (<30cm) sucker growth. The trees tend to hit a certain height and get infected.
There are some big elms famously left around Brighton and quite a bit of big Wych elm in Scotland.

 

[Kerne]

The trees tend to hit a certain height and get infected.

This is why you see lots of hedgerow elm and next to no standards. Shame, as it s a beautiful wood - I once made a mantelshelf for someone out of a elm and it polished up a treat.

 

[Surrey Yeoman]

I used to have lots of Elm next to my house on the railway cutting. All the trees were semi-mature (maybe 10 - 15 years old and about the height of the guttering at eaves height on my house). Sadly they've all died off over the past 3-4 years, all with Dutch Elm Disease.

I've taken to planting Birch, Ash and Oak seedlings to replace them and to screen my garden from the houses on the other side of the line.

 

[inthewids]

There are a lot of Elm along the Findhorn river near here, unfortunately a lot of them are dead or dying with Elms disease

 

[Oblio13]

There's almost no elm left in the states. We have 52 acres of mixed hardwoods, with only one lonely little elm, about 4" in diameter.

 

[dwardo]

Lots of wych elm but a lot fewer of the larger species.

 

[alpha_centaur]

We lost the beautiful big elm in our garden a couple of years back.

Now most of the elm has succumed to the disease round here and are being felled.

 

[robin wood]

Lots of succers and in just a few areas big trees too.

Everybody says its so sad about the elms but few people recognise one when they see it. I remember demonstrating turning at Portsmouth dockyard and folk telling me about the sad loos of elms yet at the time all along the south coast the elms were fine having been protected by the south downs (beetles don'e like flying over big open areas) Buxton still has a lot of big elms due to the moors around.

 

[Toddy]

A lot of new growth, very, very few big trees left around our way. Wych elms seemed to die off along with the Hornbeams a couple of years ago and I haven't found many new ones about.

A fair number of the old ones that have died have come through our workshops, the timber is lovely stuff, many have burrs too so there's a fair bit of that around too.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[ganstey]

I was chatting to a coppice worker a month or two back about Elms, and whether its worth consciously propagating them. We never did reach a conclusion, as it came down to whether reducing the population to critical levels would temporarily eradicate the beetles, or whether we needed to maintain a stock level so that there will be enough diversity when the beetles reduce to a level where the Elms can grow to maturity.

I'm toying with the idea of planting a few in my woodland, and just accepting that they won't grow to maturity.

G

 

[al21]

Lots of succers and in just a few areas big trees too.

Everybody says its so sad about the elms but few people recognise one when they see it. I remember demonstrating turning at Portsmouth dockyard and folk telling me about the sad loos of elms yet at the time all along the south coast the elms were fine having been protected by the south downs (beetles don'e like flying over big open areas) Buxton still has a lot of big elms due to the moors around.

Not quite sure where you get that information from. I grew up just south of Chichester, Sussex and all the Elm went in the 70's (well, apart from those over at Brighton). When I return to visit relatives now I see new growth as I do here in North Yorkshire, but as here, they get to about 8-10 inches in diameter and then succumb to the disease.