Your Favourite Ash Trees

It’s been brilliant to have people responding to Ash Tree Stream posts by sharing their own favourite Ash Trees on Twitter and Facebook, and writing poetry.

To start off this evolving post of contributions here is a Haiku written by John Hawkhead on Twitter:

die back

the old ash

turned to ash

This latest photograph shared by Dan Lombard (@ViperaDan on Twitter) shows perfectly how Ash Trees offer homes and habitats to a range of wildlife:

‘My favourite Ash tree in N. Yorks, home to breeding Little and Barn Owls. Similar trees in the Yorkshire Wolds, Ash is the dominant tree species there due to the underlying chalk geology and lots of trees like this offering excellent habitat for nesting birds.’

Thank you to Jo Echo Syan for sharing this photograph of her favourite Ash Tree, at home in her garden, via Facebook:

This next Ash Tree was shared by Julia Brigdale on Twitter. Julia says ‘Here is one of my favourite Ash Trees, I see it every day from my kitchen window, and walk to it many times throughout the week. It has a rain receptacle which my dog makes use of.’

Simon Houstoun posted this photograph that he took of sculptures made by the artists Ackroyd and Harvey from Ash wood:

‘The Ash sculptures by Harvey & Ackroyd, are located high up on the North Kent Downs. They are a celebration of ash trees and a memorial to the devastating effects of ash dieback on the most common tree in the Kent Downs. Seen against a setting sun they are very special.’

Simon continues: ‘…recommend listening to BBC radio 4 Open Country; it featured the Ash Project on 22/11/2018 & is still available to listen to on BBC website /Sounds’

As Simon mentions the sculpture was commissioned by The Ash Project which I am planning on writing about in a separate blog post soon. In the meantime you can read more about the sculptures here.

And lastly thank you to Dan Hooks, Andover based poet, who says about his poem ‘This is based on the Viking myth of Yggdrasil the tree of life’:

Andover Ash Trees

Rising from the Ash trees
we are the dust
from those trees
the first man and woman rose from the ashes
maybe we were born in the fires
of dead worlds
every boy and every girl
are Phoenix souls

by Daniel Hooks aka Alien Poet

If you have an Ash Tree that is significant to you, in the form of a photograph that you’ve taken, a piece of artwork or a poem, and you are happy for me to share it on here, please send it to me at james.aldridge4@btopenworld.com