Pam the goose wrote:
I've a feeling there's something wrong with my Rowan tree. Normally by now
the berries have gone, either eaten by the birds or fallen over-ripe to the
ground.

I saw a bird or two eating them earlier in the winter but since then,
nothing.

What worries me is that the berries are still not ripe, a sort of orange
colour, not even one of them red as they always have been till this winter.

Now I need help. Is this the beginning of the end for my tree? It's about 28
years
old, I don't know how long they live, but if it's going to give up the ghost
I'd rather have it cut down before it falls down! Just my luck if someone
was walking along the pavement as it toppled!

Can anybody help me, please?

Pam, first of all let's hope it's just the weather, and your Rowan will
be fine next year.

Otherwise, this is what Hugh McAllister writes in his excellent "The
Genus Sorbus" (Kew): "... Sorbus trunks are short lived. This need
not deter gardeners or landscapers from taking a longer term view.
In the wild, even though individual trunks may become infected by fungi
and start to die back after about forty years, all species freely
produce stool shoots from the base of their main trunks and
individuals can produce successive generations of trunks. Thus, in
situations where trees are grown on their own roots (i.e. not
grafted) and do not need to be grown on a single trunk, moribund
old trunks can be cut out and stool shoots allowed to replace them."

So, even if you do need to take out the main trunk, there's hope
that you (and the birds) will still enjoy it for many years.

HTH

-E