50 years ago Dutch elm disease pretty well wiped out the common elm in the UK. It was a tragedy. Elm was an emblem of the English landscape, our largest tree and handsome to boot, and its disappearance felt brutal and unsettling, an echo of the social, political and financial unease that gripped England in the late 1970’s I can well remember seeing hedgerows stripped of their elms and the gaping holes left behind. But as is well known, nature abhors a vacuum, and the common Ash, Fraxinus excelsior, was waiting in the wings to exploit a massive opportunity. This …