Melanie

Bonfires are actually carbon-neutral, as they only producing what was removed in growing the plants in the first place. The reason they're naughty is inflicting foul stinks on the neighbours, and no amount of recycling helps that (offering to wash their clothes, defumigate their rooms, installing air conditioning for them, and supplying anti-asthma and anti-cancer medicines for them, might be better appreciated!).

As to using the ash on plants - depends on what was in the fire. Ordinary vegetation, no problems. If there was anything else on the fire, particularly preservative-treated timber, the ash might be toxic, possibly highly so.

Resin

I also put ash over areas with spring bulbs and fork it through lightly.

I don't suppose anyone is burning off quantities of particleboard, tanalised timber, or painted material (not to mention tyres, plastics and paint tins, and other atrocities) so the ash from a small garden weed pyre is probably less toxic than the haulms from the potatoes and the leaves from the rhubarb.

I'm cautious about putting heaps around the rhodos. However, I can't imagine that acid-loving plants give up just because a wildfire has been through. If that was the case - how come the heather still comes back?

And I like the sweetening effect of the charcoal in a clay soil, too.

There's a big difference between a minuscule amount of ash from a burnt heather plant (already low in calcium), and a shovelful of (possibly calcium-rich) ash from a big bonfire!

Resin

Bush fires are not a bad thing in small doses. It's when the local authorities forbid an ancient culture that things go wrong with them.

Aboriginese in not just Australia but eberywhere from South Amrica to Borneo use that method of gardening.

"Heather needs burning off .... It gets the new growth stated and does away with the old straggly stuff"
Actually, not true; while some plants/habitats do need periodic bush fires to maintain their health, heather isn't one of them. It regenerates perfectly well without fires, as witness e.g. Kielderhead Moor (Northumbs) which hasn't been burnt since it became a reserve c.60 years ago, and the heather there is healthier than on most of the (mis-)managed grouse moors. The only reasons it is burnt on grouse moors is (1) die-hard, bone-headed tradition, (2) to make it easier for shooters to move about and find the grouse, and (3) to make it impossible for protected rare birds like Hen Harriers to nest successfully. Reason (3) is of course very illegal, but that doesn't stop them.

Resin

Resin