On 19/05/2012 14:04, Jungle Jake wrote:
Hi All,

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.

Don't worry it will quickly regrow although a lot of it will be fast
sappy growth and rather boring looking. Part of the charm of an elder
are the old gnarled branches..

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.

Please help.

Jungle Jake

There is no need to do anything as elder is tough as old boots.

Shame the tree wasn't tidied up a bit more sympathetically though. Still
on the plus side you can hang washing out without getting the birds
practising dive bombing with purple bombs!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown