Elms over England

Elms Over Epsom was created by Howard Gregory [Dip. Hort. (Kew)] as a project to research the science behind the demise of the English Elm and find disease resistant alternatives.

We live in a time with fantastic scientific advances that can rigorously test new elms for resistance (or better called tolerance) of the disease. The disease exists everywhere in nature and is transported by the Scolytus beetle.

Many hybrid elm forms are now available using resistant species from around the world. These hybrids usually have specific uses for various soil types, climate, wildlife, butterflies, autumn colour, form, shade, street trees, salt tolerance.

Fifteen years ago, a discovery was made in Spain of a naturally occurring Field elm that is resistant to the disease.

This discovery has transformed the potential to return an elm that looks very similar to the English Elm to the British countryside. This elm is called the Ademuz Elm.

Ademuz has the same word derivation as Diamond and Adamant.

Like English elm, Ademuz elm starts life as a mix of different stems on a short bole. When established, the elm chooses a stem as leader and grows away.

Elms are the lifecycle host tree for the White Letter Hairstreak butterfly. The population of this beautiful butterfly crashed with the loss of 30 million elms due to Dutch Elm Disease in the 1970’s.

Elms over England started from Elms Over Epsom. We are now supplying nature regeneration projects in Surrey, Kent and Sussex. Our trees are young light standards that will blend in with woodland creation schemes.

The further icing on the cake is the imminent release of the Herling Elms.

An English elm lover wanted to create an English elm hybrid using a very remarkable living elm from Faversham. His name was David Herling and he sadly passed away before his babies have come to market.

David crossed the Faversham elm with a then unknown Italian hybrid to create a new English elm.

His wife has named one of the four elm clones after David’s life-long friend and assistant Fergus Poncia. The other three are named after their children Maia, Samuel and Helena.

Elms Over England are proud to announce the first ever showing of this very important NEW English Elm. The name of this elm is the ‘Poncia-Herling Elm”.

Unlike previous disease resistant (Tolerant!) elm releases, this elm will be sold as a mix of four clones to further enhance biodiversity. Its important that elms can cross pollinate to ensure fertile seed are produced.

Please visit Elms Over England at FutureScape to see Ademuz and the Herling Elms.

Howard Gregory

Elms Over England