Ash tree in autumn colours near Silfield, Norfolk.

By far the largest plants in Norwich’s Grapes Hill Community Garden are four large ash trees.

The ash (Fraxinus excelsior) is a member of plant family Oleaceae, which also includes privet, lilac, jasmine and the olive tree. It is a native of Britain and Europe, growing as far north as Norway and as far south as Spain.

Sweeping up ash leaves, Grapes Hill Community Garden

The Grapes Hill ash trees were there long before the garden. They provide shade in the summer and their branches provide places for birds to perch and for lichens to grow.

In autumn they provide a supply of leaves which we sweep up and make into leaf mould in the wire basket by our compost heap. Many of the leaves remain on the ground and are incorporated into the soil by earthworms, adding free fertility.

But the shade cast by the trees and their shallow roots have an effect on what can be grown in parts of the garden. The trees take a lot of water from the soil and compete with other plants and this means that we had to choose our plants carefully, especially under the bottom two ash trees by the business units. Here we have shade tolerant perennials and woodland wildflowers and bulbs that grow and flower in spring before the ashes come into leaf.

In Scandinavian mythology the ash was Yggdrasil, the tree of life, at the centre of the world.

In Hampshire ash trees were used in a ritual to treat ruptures and weak limbs in infants. A young ash tree was split and held open with wedges and the afflicted child was passed, naked, through the gap. The split in the tree was sealed up and if the split healed the operation was deemed a success and the child would be cured.

On the other hand, in Sussex the ash was called the Widow Maker because trees often shed large boughs without warning.

The ash is a very useful tree. Ashes can be coppiced on a ten to twenty year cycle to provide poles for fuel and wood working. The wood burns well even when freshly cut. It withstands
sudden shocks so is used to make oars, snooker cues, tool handles and hockey sticks. Ash can be bent into shape and made into walking sticks and is also used to make wooden flooring and furniture. In the Second World War, the timber was used to make wings for de Havilland Mosquito aircraft.

Coppicing an ash tree prolongs its life. Ashes that aren’t coppiced may live about 250 years but one old coppice stool in Bradfield Woods in Suffolk is at least 1,000 years old, over eighteen feet across and still very vigorous and healthy. The Grapes Hill trees are probably no more than thirty years old.

Ash trees in the United States are under threat from the Emerald Ash Borer, a metallic green beetle introduced from Asia, which has killed millions of trees in the United States and Canada. The adult beetle lays eggs in crevasses in the tree’s bark and the larvae eat the cambium and phloem of the tree – the tree’s conductive tissue that transports nutrients around the plant. Fortunately, the insect has not yet reached Britain.

Lichens Xanthoria parietina and Physcia adscendens on ash

The Community Garden ash trees are very popular with wood pigeons in spring, which eat the young buds as they emerge. When birds perch on the branches they add fertiliser to the trees and garden by means of their droppings and this encourages the growth of nutrient tolerant lichens on the branches. Two of the commonest are a yellow lichen, Xanthoria parietina, and a grey one, Physcia adscendens.

Ash trees can be all male, all female or one tree can bear flowers of both sexes. Trees can change sex from one year to the next. In many years ash leaves are shed while still green but last autumn the ash leaves turned a pretty yellow before falling and added extra beauty to the garden in early November.

“From the lightness of its foliage, the graceful sweep of its branches, and the silvery appearance of its stem, [it] has been called the Venus of the Forest” – Strutt 1822

 This article first appeared in the February 2012 issue of the Grapes Hill Community Garden members’ newsletter.

Update June 2019: Since I wrote this article, Chalara Ash Dieback Disease has become established in Britain and I have seen many diseased trees in Norfolk and elsewhere in England.

I recommend reading the Oliver Rackham’s book “The Ash Tree” (Little Toller Books, Dorset, 2015) for a beautifully written account of this lovely tree, including the threats it faces today. It was written shortly before the author’s death in February 2015.