REDBRIDGE'S horse chestnuts are in full bloom once again - but tree lovers have been warned to enjoy their green beauty while it lasts.

The much-loved trees were left looking distinctly autumnal across the borough last summer after being infiltrated by leaf miner moth larvae which burrow into leaves, causing them to discolour prematurely.

But horse chestnuts, whose leaves are the symbol of Redbridge Council, are set to go a browner shade once again this year according to expert Andy Tipping of the London Tree Officers Association.

He said: "If people want to enjoy our horse chestnuts while they're green they should do it now, because they'll probably start to go brown again around late June.

"The moths plant their larvae in the leaves, and when they hatch you'll start to see them change colour.

"What people must remember is that the trees are not going to die from this. It just doesn't look very nice."

Mr Tipping, 45, of Hillcrest Road, South Woodford, said the moths, which arrived in the UK from the former Yugoslavia and are thought to have appeared first in Wimbledon - have no natural predators in the UK.

He said: "Other insects like greenfly are kept in check by predators, like ladybirds, but the moths have no predators here.

"They are also very good at finding hosts. You even see small four foot tall saplings next to the A406 affected by them.

"All people can do to combat them is to compost fallen leaves from their trees. The heat will help kill the eggs."

Despite the disfigurement caused by the moths, Mr Tipping said horse chestnuts face more serious threats from other diseases.

Bleeding canker, caused by bacterial infection, is one of the most common of these.

Jeremy Dagley, the Corporation's conservation manager for Epping Forest, said the recent cold winter may well delay the emergence of the larvae - meaning Redbridge's horse chestnut leaves could stay green for longer this summer.

He said: "We wait to see whether or not it'll be bad this year after a hard winter. It may be that we'll have a lower population (of lavae).

"We'll keep our fingers crossed that the trees will look a little bit better for longer this year.

"All in all it should be quite a good year for trees generally because there's plenty of water in the ground."

Earlier this year members of Woodford Green Amenity Group called on the City of London Corporation - which manages Epping Forest - to use a new cutting edge technique being pioneered by the University of Reading, which aims to strengthen the trees against disease by injecting extra nutrients into the soil around their roots.

Mr Dagley told the Guardian in January that the new injection technique was still in experimental stage, and that the results would not be clear for a couple of years.

He said the Corporation was currently focusing on protecting Epping Forest's 1,200 'keystone trees' and that he was waiting to see whether horse chestnuts develop ways of coping with leaf miner by themselves.