- 48 Westmoreland Ave.
- Photo: © Dougal Bichan
This quaint old house with its large welcoming porch is one of the original farmhouses in the area, built prior to 1880. Before the neighbourhood was developed in the 1920s, farmhouses similar to this one would have stood along this street (then a dirt path), surrounded by gardens, crops and the occasional fruit tree. There are still a few of these historic cottages scattered throughout the neighbourhood.
The two trees in front of the house are plums (Prunus sp). Of note are the dark clumps on their twigs and branches. These swellings are a disease called black knot (Dibotryon morbosum), a fungus that infects cultivated and wild species of plums, prunes, and cherries. Spores of the fungal disease are spread by wind and rain. Once the spores come to rest on branches the disease enters the tissue of the tree and begins to grow, in time becoming hard and black. The knots of infected wood clog the tubes inside the branches that transport water and nutrients to the leaves, eventually killing the tree.
The only effective treatment for this disease is to cut out all infected parts, making sure to disinfect your pruning tool between cuts and put pruned branches out for collection to prevent spores from spreading to neighbouring trees.
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