Wotta Lotta Mistletoe

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 Mistletoe Grow-Kit from the English Mistletoe Shop.