Weeping ash

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dickm

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One of our local castles has a weeping ash in the grounds; smaller branches sweep down almost to ground level, but the trunk itself looks perfectly normal and upright. Does anyone know whether the timber in the trunk would have any different properties from that of "normal" ash?
 
I have a feeling that weeping ash is normally graftd onto a "normal ash" rootstock. I recall reading it somewhere, but it may have been weeping willow.
 
Almost always grafted onto a normal stem. There are two forms too. One make a very big tree but is not so droopy as the other which is often found in older graveyards. I cannot remember the variety names though.

Robert
 
Thanks for the comments. I don't THINK this one is grafted, as the weeping branches are all the way up the trunk, over a length of probably 40 feet. So the higher branches don't actually reach the ground, but just sweep downwards very gracefully.
There was an obviously grafted one in a garden near Ludlow - that was just like an umbrella.
 
I would hazard a guess and say there would be no great, if any, difference in the timber, it is only a variety of Ash.

Unless they are easy to propagate by cuttings, cultivars are always grafted, it is the only way to keep the plant true to type, they will revert if propagated by seeds, the graft is usually done near ground level to keep the trees characteristics all the way up the trunk so in an old tree that graft would have disappeared long ago.

Andy (ex nursery owner)
 
I would hazard a guess and say there would be no great, if any, difference in the timber, it is only a variety of Ash.

Unless they are easy to propagate by cuttings, cultivars are always grafted, it is the only way to keep the plant true to type, they will revert if propagated by seeds, the graft is usually done near ground level to keep the trees characteristics all the way up the trunk so in an old tree that graft would have disappeared long ago.

Andy (ex nursery owner)
 
Thanks, Andy - I think I was confusing myself thinking of the umbrella style ones.

My thinking was that (presumably?) part of the weeping character is down to the branches being less rigid than normal ash; if so, would the same be true of the timber in the trunk?
Or is the weeping actually a negatively geotropic growth form, not floppy branches?
 

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