But I worry about a parasite that lurks and starts to emerge surprisingly early in the year -- the horse chestnut leaf-miner is a small moth with caterpillars that feed inside the leaves, causing brown or white blotch mines to develop between the leaf veins.
It is usually easy to spot trees affected by the leaf-mining moth, especially as the season progresses.
- Horse chestnuts produce normal foliage and flowers in the spring and the first signs of leaf-mining usually appear during June in the UK
- Elongate blotches, at first white but later turning brown, develop on the foliage from June onwards
- Caterpillars, or circular pupal cocoons, can be seen within the mined areas if the leaf is held up to the light
- By August, most of the leaf area may be occupied by leaf mines, giving the impression that the tree is dying, although it will survive
- Heavily infested trees will drop their leaves early, however research has shown that this has almost no effect on the growth rate or health of trees
(This is copied from the Royal Horticultural Society website: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=533)
In some parts of the south of England trees might be looking sad already. In Harrogate we mostly seemed to get away with it last year. Too cold? Too windy? Too stubbornly Yorkshire?
But I'm interested to see what's going to happen this year, and particularly interested to see if the trees with pink flowers and those with white flowers are affected in the same way.
But leaving the potential doom and gloom aside, there are some beautiful flowering trees on the Stray, like these elder trees by the railway line near the Tewit Well.
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