Saturday Snapshots: Wych Elm

Published on by Margaret

We have a wych elm in the back garden. This year it’s been absolutely full of seeds, many more than usual:

Wych elm P1080810

The seeds have been blowing all over the garden, covering the lawn and borders. They grow in clusters:Wych elm P1080813One got caught in a cobweb:

Wych elm seed P1010780Here it is in close-up:

Wych elm seed P1080809Wych Elms are hardy trees and have greater resistance to Dutch elm disease than other elms. The name ‘wych’ comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning pliable and refers to the tree’s twigs. Its wood has many uses, including underground water pipes (in the past), boat building and the seats of chairs – it’s also the traditional wood used for coffins.

I love trees – and they are good for you:

A garden without trees is as hard to envisage as an art gallery with pictures. Trees soften the landscape. They provide shade in the summer and protection during the winter. A screen of trees around the house can provide enough wind-shelter to reduce by a tenth the energy consumption in the home. Their canopy of leaves acts as a highly effective pollution filter, absorbing many of the major atmospheric pollution gases, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulphur dioxide. Research also reveals that we are happier and more relaxed when we are in leafy surroundings … (The Therapeutic Garden by Donald Norfolk page 105)

For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy Reads.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

9 thoughts on “Saturday Snapshots: Wych Elm”

  1. Thanks for all the Wych Elm information. One of the pubs near to where I live is called The Wych Elm, but I had not given much thought to the actual tree. I love the close up of the seed.

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  2. Oh, how I miss the elm trees here in the States. They made such beautiful shade trees down the main streets of so many towns and cities! The Dutch Elm disease really devastated them … Lucky you to have a healthy elm tree!

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  4. Lovely Margaret! My son is an Arborist so we all love trees in our family and he is so full of info on them. We just saw a very old lovely Elm in Pittsburgh when down there for his graduation from art school and he was so tickled to see the elm. Said that is a sight you very rarely see now. It was a beautifully shaped tree.

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  5. I haven’t seen an elm tree since I was a child, that I remember anyhow. I miss them. We’ve tried planting new trees on our property but the deer munch on the small ones until they die. The only one that survived was a weeping willow which is now huge and very healthy. I love it; planted it in an area that was always too wet and it solved that problem very well.

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