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  • Article: Pollards, the forgotten art-discussion

    Po!la*d-a four letter word?

     

    One could be forgiven for thinking it is! I am almost afraid to mention the word in today’s arboricultural scene, but am I the only one who thinks it a little ironic that we now revere the very trees that where pruned in such a way we might now lynch those doing it? Is pollarding really to be considered the ultimate sin? Or is there just a lack of insight into the merits and de merits of each case, and a fear of retribution for going out on a limb and making the choice. At this time it’s a brave man that suggests “sensitive pruning” isn’t always the right approach. As a climber of 20 odd years I have done my fair share of old and veteran trees, and had to pollard (oops, blasphemy!) some for spurious reasons, not having been the one responsible for the job specification. If there is one thing I have gained through my successes and failures it is insight, a “feel” for the tree and its life from seed to senescence, its grace and ultimate glory as a grandfather of time.

    Thanks to the likes of Neville Fay and Ted green MBE the arb world is more enlightened on the whole subject of ancient trees and veteranisation, and the world seems to be awakening to a new understanding. We have come almost full circle, we grew a distain for harsh techniques and Hepting/ Shigo and others exposed the issues with poor pruning and treatments. A refined approach was born and some of us went on to become masters of the art in fine tip reductions in respect of this new knowledge. We stopped over lifting tree canopies and crucified the “over thinners” we mobbed the “purveyor’s of pollard”. While all this was going on a few of us “labourers” where reading up and taking notes, watching the debates and doing what we where told was the “best practice”.

     

    “I’m not suggesting we abandon this approach, preservation of amenity is a different game altogether”

     

     

    Now it is our turn to give some input to the debate, and I am certain there will be many “old school” climbers ready to join in. The one thing that is blindingly obvious to me is that very little respect is paid to the “experience factor” it is all well and good educating yourself and gaining a degree in arboriculture, but you can never learn from books what you learn by feel; and trees, though they may be the substance (paper) of text books, rarely are trees text book in nature. I mean no disrespect to the “consultants” but you really should pay more heed to the views and experience of climbers. The older climbers have a body of experience gained from a time when we just got on with it, rounding over, pollarding etc. We might never consider doing it these days but we know HOW to do it and how to do it well, skills that are being lost on a generation of climbers who only know the way it is today.

    What this will mean in a decade or two is that people with the very skills the veteran brigade seek to re learn will be lost, how hard can you prune? Where can we make that cut for the best compromise of vascular support and minimal dysfunction? Have we not learnt just how resilient trees can be? Decay and dysfunction are part and parcel of a trees old age, be that from natural progressive infections or via pruning wounds, they are the same end result so why fear them? I am sick to my teeth of being told I can not do this and I can not do that, when I have all my life proven time and time again that it CAN be done, but it has to be with “insight” I fear if we don’t settle the debate soon a whole gap will appear in the generations of veterans as the old ones die while we are all trying to “rediscover” the old ways. The Japanese have been “veteranising” for a thousand years, albeit on a different scale, the principles are the same. The art of producing a miniature ancient tree of visual stature and form is the same art required to recreate the ancient pollards and veterans of the medieval era. You just have to think BIG.

    I have seen some ridiculous attempts at re creating the pollard, and some pretty dire attempts at recession pruning, so bad in fact I doubt Mr X in his white transit with traces of tarmac could do a worse job! I can no longer remain silent walking the old deer parks and seeing trees unmulched unfenced and unloved, they are as much a part of our green and pleasant lands history as any building or monument yet they are left to fend for themselves much of the time despite all the current knowledge available. We need to re-evaluate the pollard fast and to think of pollarding as an option for those old trees considered for felling due to various defects, infections or even subsidence issues. I do not mean the way its done on LA budgets either for those thinking along those lines!

    Some people in the field are of the opinion that pollarding was carried out when the tree was young and while this may be true in today’s scene, it was certainly not the case in the medieval period or Tudor period. I am well aware that there exist few records of the pollarding of old. However the tree is a record of its life, it tells us like a book of a thousand pages what events took place in its life, and when. One only has to look at those old pollards of Burnham to see that pollarding was a brutal practice; the evidence is in the hollow centres. We only have to look at compartmentalisation to see how large the tree was when it was Pollarded. The now hollow stems are the new wood that formed over the dysfunctional core. While the living cambium continued to grow over the now dead part, the demons of D, death, decay and dysfunction (Shigo), moved in and had a tasty supper of lignin and/or cellulose.

    I think there was two ways possibly three of pollarding, and certain that Arborist’s of the time much like the good ones today had a “feel” for their art. I am certain that a tree that had previously been un-pollarded would have had the two major lower limbs left on and been decapitated above this point. This guaranteed that the tree would continue to grow and survive the loss of its head, like the “monarchs without head” a form that is made perfectly naturally. We have to realise that in those times text books where the preserve of the wealthy, these where craftsman whose skills where passed on to a new generation of apprentices. They also had the luxury of more trees to make mistakes with, if one or two died it was no big deal, it made good firewood! Today if we gambled with one of say three oaks on a site we would be justifiably lynched if they was to die from such a brutal practice.

    Now going back to the monarch without head, I am certain that once good re growth was established and of much more slender proportions the now only substantial wood left was also highly desirable and those limbs originally left in place where now cut back to some re growth on their length. I am certain it was this process that created those extraordinarily wide shoulders or “pollard heads” we now see especially in the Burnham beech trees. This is also evident in the way the decay columns extend into the larger thicker sections of these old pollard heads.

    This brings me to the whole demons of D thing again, and I think we need to understand these processes far better if we are to re create our heritage trees for future generations to revere. Its an area of heated debate, and an area that is still to this day largely misunderstood and understudied. I hope to convince the sceptical of the role fungi play in the longevity of trees; this is a co evolutionary process that has gone on for millennia. I have a disdain for the word attack when it comes to fungi, and prefer to think of it as taking advantage of a situation. As with all natural organisms and systems they have a role and a purpose, they are essential and should not be viewed as an “enemy”

     

    I think there may have been a time in history, and not so long ago, when mans activities actualy enhanced Bio diversity, rather than eliminated it. We are losing our way, its time to re think our strategies.

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    I know exactly where you are coming from tony, you remind me of me a few years ago, you are not happy in life so you are idealising what would be the perfect life. But that doesnt solve your problems just now, if you are working 7 days a week, have a crapy car and cant afford to live, then you need to sort yourself out, doing a course you cant afford isnt going to help, you need to get a hold of your life and make a plan. You have told us you have been robbed, left with finance and debt, you must be stressed out your head. Why dont you have a read through my stress thread mate, i think you will be able to relate to a few things:001_smile:

     

    I am not that stressed shreks wee brother, i get out for one day in an ancient wood and all my troubles fade away, as soon as i see an old tree or a new fungus i am "healed" Its funny, i found the olive oysterling a few weeks ago, my first record of it, it is these things that make my life a happy one, the rest is just life, and i get on with it, but my walks with my dog camera in hand, thats our time, and we make the absolute most of it. maybe more than most as it is a rare event to me, special times worth living for.:biggrin:

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    as for sorting myself out, thats why im doing the school thing, without it I am unemployable for anything other than climbing and i already get top wack on that front, less anyone here has a better offer!

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    i am the same mate, i walk my dogs in the woods and take pictures, but a few years ago when i came back home the bills and the debt and the grief would still be there, it took me 3 years to get it sorted properly, its funny, i bumped my thread for you and had a little look at the first few pages, when i started it i was really skint because i still had some kit needing sold(i still do) but i was on my journey and i had a plan, this place has saved me, and i think it will help you to, hell you are on talking to me at 01.43am on chrimbo eve, i am addicted to this place as you can probably tell, but it isnt eating into my family time just now and i will be up at 7.30am with the boys.

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    i hate to have to drop a reality bombshell but in those days while the money might not have been great often housing came with the job, a lot of food would have been readily avaliable on the estate and to be honest, Most people would be happy with the pressure release of that lifestyle.

     

    Can I just post my comments regarding this debate. My dad had me very late in life. He was born in 1906 the son of a sheperd and the youngest of three brothers and three sisters. He was awarded a scholarship but because of the hard financial reality of the time started work at 14 as did his siblings.

     

    All the boys went into estate work and the girls into service. The reality of estate work was 5am start with the horses until whatever time they finished. That meant living above the stables winter and summer until he married and moved into a tied cottage. Ok that meant free milk and the odd rabbit etc!

     

    In 1957 he broke free from estate work but never lost the work ethic. A full-time job, an acre of veg garden, pigs and a thousand chickens. On top of that sundays were spent odd jobbing for farmers etc.

     

    His sole intention in all this was that my sister and I would never have to endure the 'pressure relief' of that estate lifestyle. Maybe he was misguided...I'll never know. Enough of my ramblings:001_smile:

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    Can I just post my comments regarding this debate. My dad had me very late in life. He was born in 1906 the son of a sheperd and the youngest of three brothers and three sisters. He was awarded a scholarship but because of the hard financial reality of the time started work at 14 as did his siblings.

     

    All the boys went into estate work and the girls into service. The reality of estate work was 5am start with the horses until whatever time they finished. That meant living above the stables winter and summer until he married and moved into a tied cottage. Ok that meant free milk and the odd rabbit etc!

     

    In 1957 he broke free from estate work but never lost the work ethic. A full-time job, an acre of veg garden, pigs and a thousand chickens. On top of that sundays were spent odd jobbing for farmers etc.

     

    His sole intention in all this was that my sister and I would never have to endure the 'pressure relief' of that estate lifestyle. Maybe he was misguided...I'll never know. Enough of my ramblings:001_smile:

     

    point taken and duly noted, but dont you think we just have "different" hardships now? like everything is relative?

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    point taken and duly noted, but dont you think we just have "different" hardships now? like everything is relative?

     

     

    I think it's easy to look back and see a more relaxed, romantic lifestyle and miss the hardships.....and yes we do have different hardships/pressures now. Our children will look back to this time and see that rose-tinted life we are going through.

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    I think it's easy to look back and see a more relaxed, romantic lifestyle and miss the hardships.....and yes we do have different hardships/pressures now. Our children will look back to this time and see that rose-tinted life we are going through.

     

    do you not think though that if we can combine much of the older ways with the best of the modern we will have a better richer society and lives? rather than just throwing away what is essentialy essentail skills?

     

    what if there was a pandemic in 200 years time and all those people living so lost from nature had to suddenly get on with it? modern life is at present unsustainable, and prone to catastrophe, is it not?

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    do you not think though that if we can combine much of the older ways with the best of the modern we will have a better richer society and lives? rather than just throwing away what is essentialy essentail skills?

     

    what if there was a pandemic in 200 years time and all those people living so lost from nature had to suddenly get on with it? modern life is at present unsustainable, and prone to catastrophe, is it not?

     

    Ah in this throw away society even skills are not immune. Yes I do believe that if the pandemic scenario happened many people would not have the skills to survive.

     

    This is not their fault. We all rely on a small percentage of people (farmers, growers) to provide for us in a busy life. What I see of more concern is the agricultural and forestry monoculture. Vast tracts of the same species/var. being wiped out by whatever superbug or disease that we are incapable of controlling. So as long as we all demand cheap food diversity in agriculture won't happen unless we dig deep and pay up.

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    Ah in this throw away society even skills are not immune. Yes I do believe that if the pandemic scenario happened many people would not have the skills to survive.

     

    This is not their fault. We all rely on a small percentage of people (farmers, growers) to provide for us in a busy life. What I see of more concern is the agricultural and forestry monoculture. Vast tracts of the same species/var. being wiped out by whatever superbug or disease that we are incapable of controlling. So as long as we all demand cheap food diversity in agriculture won't happen unless we dig deep and pay up.

     

    What makes me die is all the fuss over these bees, they transport 100's of thousands of bees to a massive mono culture for two weeks traveling upwards of a thousand miles, two weeks on and then moved again, and they wonder why the bees are stressed and geting viruses! tonkas.

     

    i think modern agriculture techniques will eventualy be faded out, iether that or they will work out organics and diverse growing is the rigght way AFTER the mono cultures and modern agriculture goes into a collapse, imagine!

     

    you only have to look down from a plane to see how much of our land mass is devoted to crops, if that all went tits up like the potatoe famine, it would cause anarky

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