I also hate the mildew that affects the vine’s leaves at this end of the season. It takes up a lot of precious sunny space and the crops are uncertain. Fruit trees, like roses, never flourish if you replant them in soil where their doppelgangers have been growing. I’ll miss it very much.But there is space for a new fruit tree elsewhere – more specifically against the south wall of the kitchen garden, where a vine has been mouldering for some time. The cobbles and flagstones of the yard come right up to the trunk of the pear, so we would never be able to excavate much soil from the planting hole, or remove many of the old tree’s roots. Honey fungus, like pneumonia, always moves in on the weak and aged.The sad thing is, we won’t be able to plant another in its place. Now it’s dead and I’m kicking myself that I never found out its name.
Why did it die? Well, I suppose it was honey fungus, endemic in old gardens.

That has been responsible for the deaths of several other of our old fruit trees. The pear was probably weakened by the droughts of the last couple of years And it was old More than a hundred I would guess. An old pear dies .. time to plant a peach. Or should that be an apple?

Disaster has struck the old pear tree that grows against a west wall of the house, just to the side of the door through to the cobbled yard. It was one of the few good things in the garden when we arrived: a huge mad tree, trained against the wall in the shape of a giant T, with a cluster of ferns growing along the two generous arms that made the horizontal top.

Three trailer-runs were needed to bring home all the booty, and as I was unloading the last of it, my neighbour, a retired judge, came round to ask if I had lost anything.Earlier, he had been considerably surprised to see a hefty log turn at right-angles off the lane, roll into his drive and thud gently to rest in his gateway. When he heard where it had come from, he turned pale.Now I have a ton and a half of prime ash stacked in my woodshed. But every time I bring in a basket of logs during the winter, I shall be haunted by memories of those ghastly seconds when I vainly gave chase to the two that got away.. Half a mile from the scene of the crime, there was still no trace of the second tearaway.At least nobody was dead. Hustling back uphill, I grabbed saw and helmet and returned to the attack.

The other must have carried on, past my own house, past my neighbour. On I went, right to the bottom of the lane, right to the patch of mud by the post box. A 100-yard straight, another long bend, the second straight, this one aimed dead at the Capri No crump, no dent – but still no logs. Had they done a shuttlecock and, at a left-hander, leapt the fence into the field?Another left-hander, then a right, a third straight.