Ash Dieback: A Loss to Queen’s Park
There are 460 Ash Trees in Queen’s Park. Half of them will die in the foreseeable future because of a disease known as Ash Dieback. The future of the park’s arboreal landscape is very much in our hands.
Illustration by Suzie Cichy
By Laura Williams
Summer is here, and Queen’s Park is full of life; birds are tweeting, and the park is awash with Bluetooth speakers and picnic rugs. It’s hard to imagine this vibrant place that brings joy, relief, and comfort to so many – suffering under the siege of illness. And yet, Queen’s Park is sick; its ash trees are succumbing to a disease that is set to alter its arboreal landscape forever.
Ash Dieback (or Chalara) was first detected in the UK in 2012, and it didn’t take long for the disease to make its way from Buckinghamshire – where it was first spotted – up to Scotland. Now, it’s rife in Glasgow and is set to spell the end for many of the ash trees in Queen’s Park, as well as in the nearby area.
There are 460 Ash Trees in Queen’s Park, and – from a survey carried out last year by Ryan Fleming, a tree expert working on Ash Dieback around Glasgow – 286 of these are infected with the disease. Sadly, many of the trees showing no signs of infection in the last survey, are predicted to display symptoms over the coming years. It is estimated that the UK will lose 80% of its ash trees to the disease, and Ryan predicts that the numbers in Queen’s Park will be no different. This means we are likely to lose around 350 trees from the park. There’s no known cure for ash dieback, and given that it is spread through airborne fungal spores, it is almost impossible to mitigate. All Ryan can do is damage control.
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In the final stages of infection, the wood of the tree becomes too brittle to sustain its own weight. Heavy branches fall to the ground and the trunk will ultimately topple. In areas like Queen’s Park, this poses a risk to public safety. Ryan’s job is to manage this risk, ensuring that the only casualties of this arboreal epidemic are the trees themselves. He monitors infected ash trees in heavily populated areas; when the risk of the tree crumbling under its own weight becomes significant, Ryan and his team cut it down to ensure there are no human tragedies. Some infected ash trees have already been sacrificed in favour of public safety. Next time you pass The Glasshouse, take a look at the ornamental lawns outside. You’ll see two exposed stumps where a pair of weeping ash used to stand.
However, not every infected ash tree in the park will meet its end by way of chainsaw. Those found in areas of low foot traffic will be allowed to succumb naturally to the disease. When their branches drop off and their trunks eventually snap, nature will be allowed to take its course. The deadwood will provide shelter and habitat for flora and fauna until it decomposes back into the earth, releasing its minerals and enriching the surrounding soil.
Where trees are forcibly removed, the timber is recycled or reused wherever possible. Some of the wood is repurposed as biomass fuel which is used to power the furnace that heats the glasshouse, keeping the park’s resident reptiles warm. On other occasions, the wood is collected by local charities and social enterprises, like The BullWood Project, an organisation that aims to introduce Glaswegians from all backgrounds to the art of woodwork. It’s nice to think of the doomed Ash Trees being repurposed in this way, transformed into a rickety first stool or a slightly lopsided wooden vase.
Nonetheless, as we walk around the park, it's difficult to not feel a sense of impending loss. Ryan points out one ash tree, located at the top of the steps leading up from the Langside roundabout. He tells me that it could be anywhere between 100 to 120 years old, which means the tree must have been planted only a few decades after the park was first opened to the Victorian public. He points to hundreds of small shoots growing from the tree’s branches. This is called epicormic growth, it’s a sign that a tree is under great stress and a common symptom of ash dieback. Ryan explains that a tree does this when they know they’re dying; they shoot out new branches to grow fresh leaves to photosynthesize. They fight to stay alive, but their valiant efforts only prolong the inevitable. The tree will soon have to be put out of its misery.
I ask Ryan why the ash trees are left to the later stages before they are felled. My deeply engrained anthropocentric tendencies tell me that it’s to soften the blow for the park’s human visitors, to make the change gradual instead of sudden and shocking. But Ryan explains that the shift needs to be gentle for the park’s non-human inhabitants who take residence in, and on, the ash trees. There are 955 species that make use of ash trees in Scotland. Of these, 45 are obligate, meaning they occur only on ash trees, and 62 are highly associated with ash, meaning they are rarely found elsewhere. The ash trees need to battle the disease for as long as possible to ensure that these species are not left without habitats.
There’s a formula to estimate the monetary value of a single tree, called the CAVAT (capital asset value for amenity trees) value. Multiple factors are taken into account: the tree’s air purifying capabilities, its value as a habitat, and its role within the water cycle, as well as other considerations. Although I’m not certain I agree with our human predisposition to ascribe everything a monetary value, the CAVAT value of some of these trees helps our economically wired brains to comprehend the cost of this epidemic – some of the older Ash Trees are valued at over £50,000.
Glasgow City Council is mapping out a replanting scheme for our fallen ash trees. Although no plans are set in stone, it looks like all felled ash trees will be recommended for replanting. For obvious reasons, the replacement will not be species for species, and Ryan tells me that it’s unlikely that substitutions will be made in exactly the same locations. Over the course of the coming years, the tree-scape of the park will change drastically. Some areas will lose large patches of their canopies, whilst in other places new saplings will start to take root, filling the void of the bygone ash.
Ryan hopes that the replanting scheme is taken seriously, and that the ash trees are replaced with a species that is native to Scotland, like oak or beech. However, in decisions like this, money talks. It states in the latest Queen’s Park management plan that decisions about replanting contracts are determined 70 percent by cost and 30 percent by provenance.
This is a way that as a community, we can fight for the ash trees. It’s too late to save them, but we can make a case for who their successors should be. The future of the park’s arboreal landscape is very much in our hands. We can shout on behalf of those who can’t in order to ensure Queen’s Park remains a woodland haven for all.