In article ,
Emery Davis wrote:
On 05/19/2012 03:04 PM, Jungle Jake wrote:

I live in a rented house which until recently had a lovely 12ft
Elderflower tree growing at the bottom of the garden - that was until
the landlord decided that it was overgrown and needed to be pruned. Fair
enough I thought, until to my horror when I came home from work one day
last week to find the tree has been chopped back to nothing more than a
stump.

The tree is now 'leaking' what I presume to be watery sap (quite
copiusly) from the trunk/branches where it has been cut. I'm unsure what
I should do as I have read somewhere that a tree 'sealant' should be
painted on the tree to stop it bleeding and defend against disease -
though the RHS website states they no longer advise using sealants or
bandaging, so I don't know whether I should just leave the tree to heal
naturally, but I am worried that if don't do anything it might die.

Don't worry. Practically impossible to kill. It will now put out 3
meter shoots in all directions and look really untidy. Shame really,
but you could do some formative pruning as it goes.

Don't try to paint any sealant, just let it dry out on its own. It'll
be fine soon enough.

And considerably more out of control :-) Elder often isn't very
long-lived, anyway, because it seeds readily and grows like the
clappers as soon as it gets going. The most annoying thing will
be the loss of this year's flowers.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.