Abbeydale, South Yorkshire: A much-loved tree may have gone, but dozens of small holes drilled up its trunk make me think a new chapter is about to begin
When Jim died, we decided, having talked it through with the neighbours, to leave him where he was in the garden. Our friend had been good to us in life and there was no reason to assume that would change. Jim was a tree, a common alder, although given that alders are monoecious, or hermaphroditic, not the most appropriate moniker. He, or she, was named by our daughter Rosa, who often spent afternoons after school in Jim’s boughs, hugging the fissured grey trunk, as rough as an elephant. But despite being a similar age, with a similar lifespan, the alder didn’t long survive Rosa leaving home. Over several springs, its leaves became increasingly sparse and failed to unfurl properly. An orange stain appeared in cracks at the base of the trunk. Small branches began dying off, then larger ones. Last year Jim gave up the ghost altogether, a victim to alder dieback, the Phytophthora mould infection that is ravaging alders up and down the country.
Related: Country diary: a chainsaw massacre in the alder woods
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