Car included to give scale. That really is a lot of mistletoe! Some as big as the car. On poplars in Church Lane, Bentham, between Brockworth and Shurdingon on the A46 in Gloucestershire. It’s a location I’ve been to many times before, but this year those mistletoe growths really do look massive. And unsustainable – at least some will probably break off in winter storms.
I was in the area today to look at the preliminary clearance work at Henley Bank Orchard, just 500 metres to the SW of these poplars. That is a neglected and overgrown orchard recently taken on by the Gloucestershire Orchard Trust for restoration as a community orchard. .
But there’s notta lotta mistletoe in that orchard as the trees are all perry pears – and mistletoe rarely grows on pears.
However the trees there are probably well over 100 years old, which is plenty of time for a bit of unlikely colonisation to have taken place. And, sure enough, now the leaves have fallen, I did spot a few mistletoe plants here and there, but looking very small and sickly (see arrow on pic) compared to those on the poplars.
Want your own mistletoe? Grow your own with a Mistletoe Grow-Kit from the English Mistletoe Shop.