Mogga wrote:
On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:40:06 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:

A friend has a cotoneaster hedge which has fireblight. Its total demise
in the affected parts seems inevitable since it is opposite the gates of
a secondary school and miscreants hit the hedge with sticks on a daily
basis so the bruised bark is easily infected. I am not sure if anything

Do they bring their own sticks? If not, remove the source of the
sticks first.

I honestly don't know where they get the sticks from, but I would hazard
a guess that they snap them off other neighbours hedges. Certainly
whilst I was pruning out the worst dead wood on Saturday a lad walking
down the street was smashing hell out of neighbouring hedges as he went.

They have broken a few dead stems of around 1" diameter off this old
established hedge too. But the bulk of the damage to living wood is
bruising. Given the incidence of fireblight I reckon it is terminal.

Incidentally when I was at school there were litter squads sent out to
tidy up after the icecream van, but in this location it appears that the

When I was at school litter picking was a punishment apart from one
day a year when the entire school tipped out with bags to collect all
the litter from the grounds. We weren't allowed out of school though
and for the most part people stuck to this.

There was always an icecream van outside our school gates...

The local authority will have a department who's job it is to pick
litter up and address the problems. I think these days it is tragic
but need to have mobile cctv vans to catch litter droppers and fine
them and then give them hours of picking litter up as a punishment.

Our council has a website you can post images of litter to
http://www.tidyoldham.co.uk

Local councillors may be interested in helping, but it's a long time
off the next election.

Their idea of helping was to put up the penalty signs.

Regards,
Martin Brown
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **