I left an old cider apple tree unpruned over the last couple of years. It's knackered, and it had a really good crop of Mistletoe on it. I pruned about a third of it off and our older two children took it up to London in 20 big bunches, which they sold for £100 (including a donation to Common Ground - allegedly the cheque is in the post). Had I kept the tree in decent nick it might have produced apples worth something well under £5. Bizarre. I'm trying to square this peculiar reality with the news that the Mistletoe Marble Moth (Celypha Woodiana) is disappearing because of the shrinking number of traditional orchards. And what about the poor old Mistletoe Weevil (Ixapion variegatum), I ask myself? So I suppose from an economic and environmental point of view we should be planting orchards and turning them over to mistletoe production. Curioser and curioser.
