A Week on the Estate: Trust Tour, Cheese Tease & Woodland Health

At South Ormsby Estate, chalara has principally affected the 1997 ash planting. Stricken ashes decline slowly and younger trees are more vulnerable. The effects are conspicuous and include wilting, discolouration and the appearance of death. The chalara fungus has been present in the region since 2013, but our ashes deteriorated markedly from 2019 onwards.

Chalara fungi over-winter in leaf litter, then in summer release spores that can be carried up to 10 miles on the wind. When they land on ash leaves, they penetrate the xylem, block the tree’s water supply and slowly starve it to death. The fungus causes minimal damage in its native Asia, but the European Ash (Fraxinus Excelsior) hasn’t co-evolved with it and has no defence.

We’ve been actively planting new saplings across the Estate with a view to making our woodlands diverse and resilient. If you’ve walked our trails, you may have seen brand new oak, larch, hornbeam, western red cedar, Norway spruce, alder, cherry, sweet chestnut, beech, sycamore and silver birch.

As well as replanting, we’ve mitigated the loss by turning some of the felled timber into new gates and bridges around the estate with the help of Ketsby Sawmill. We’ve also used ash timber in our biomass boiler. The Woodland Trust estimates that over time, 95% of UK ash trees will die at a cost to the rural economy of £15 billion. We’re working hard to mitigate our local losses and keep our woodlands healthy and diverse.

Closer to home, Damian Furlong and Mark Vines stage a photo-session in the Walled Garden for Mark’s new Lincoln Red cheese. This tasty test batch inevitably attracted attention from the garden team. Colin was bowled over by this tasty Tomme cheese and didn’t mind showing it for the camera. We’re pretty sure you shouldn’t slice fine, artisan cheese with a trowel but you can’t take the garden out of the gardener.

The cheese is still under development and isn’t yet available for purchase, alas! Watch this space for more news and click HERE to find out where Mark’s up to with his exciting creations.

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