Plant to grow up dead tree trunks - help/ideas, please

DylanQuestion

We have a couple of ash trees in our garden that are on their way out. For the last two years they barely grew leaves, probably because of ash dieback. We got them heavily pruned back in the hopes that it would help (they had been poorly pruned before but didn't grow well after so were damaged too from the weird growth - a lot of canker looking things from branches rubbing off eachother, as well as holly growing into them). After this heavy pruning, they grew back great last summer but already I can see a lot of those new shoots have since died, turning the usual dieback purple (although the tree surgeons said there was no ash dieback). We don't expect them to grow back this year, sadly, and so have began planting replacements. However, there are now around five trunks standing around 12-15 feet. It would be difficult to fully get rid of them as there are so many other things growing in the hedgerow that would probably be disrupted.

Which leads to my question. We were thinking of maybe using them almost like trellis to grow creeping/climbing plants up, especially flowering ones. Like Virginia creepers but not that. Does anyone have any suggestions for plants that could do this? We were thinking of planting them at the base and let them grow up. Ivy has done this already on some of our neighbours' ash trees but ivy isn't the most attractive plant in the world. I'd also like to know how safe this is. Could the new root system compromise the standing trees and cause them to fall? They're not at risk of falling on anything other than a hedge (which may be getting removed anyway) but we don't want the tree uprooting anything else on its way down if that's the case. Obviously they're already at risk at falling, more just concerned will this greatly increase that risk. Thank you :)

athlone573

Ash is a softwood and, although I'm no expert, I would expect it to rot down (possibly with the help of honey fungus) within a few years.

Are you sure you want a creeper? How about a bush of some sort, pyracantha or something, to fill the gap?

looksee

I have honeysuckle growing in that situation. It normally grows in crowded hedgerow situations so is willing enough to get established around the root system of a tree. Many of them are evergreen so you will have leaf cover all year round.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118698635#Comment_118698635

Ash is a hardwood.

athlone573

Technically yes but it rots quickly