Topping scotch pine?

[Mr. Bish]

Well the first thing to do is check the TPO status. They are just outside a conservation zone and he also wants a little work done to the beech that you can just about see on the left of piccy.

 

If they are clear I will go and offer my opinion.

 

The right hand cypress is half dead already and is coming out (My banker) :-) the right hand pine won't cope with a major topping as there just are no significant branches below so I am in favour of removing that too. then perhaps he will go with a thinning and smaller reduction in height.

 

Thanks for all the advise though. I am new to this and it is just a bit scary. I have seen a few home brewed hackings around the town and really don't want to add one of my jobs to the list.

 

That way I get all the work and can still drive past it every day without hanging my head.

 

On a seperate part of the job.....

Access is about 20 yards drag to chip spot and all waste to be removed. Purely out of personal interest how much would you quote for that sort of job? I have £540 in mind

[Dean Lofthouse]

:congrats:

 

So you would butcher a perfectly healthy tree??

 

Tut Tut

[Mr Ed]

Fell connifer, fell smaller pine, deadwood and crown clean larger pine > £540 is a fair price.

[skyhuck]

So you would butcher a perfectly healthy tree??

 

Tut Tut

 

Only as an alternative to felling in SOME circumstances,some of our oldest and most interesting trees have been butchered in the past.

I do not like a black and white atitude,each situation is different :wave:

[Amelanchier]

Fell 'em all. Replant with heavy standard suitable species. Cheaper in the long run.

 

Having the right tree in the right place means that Ed will run out of trees to top!

[Mr Ed]

Fell 'em all! Let God sort them out!

 

Tree nazi! Arbor supremacist!

[Dean Lofthouse]

Only as an alternative to felling in SOME circumstances,some of our oldest and most interesting trees have been butchered in the past.

I do not like a black and white atitude,each situation is different :wave:

 

 

I only have a "black and white Attitude" when a customer asks me to cut a tree in half because it blocks out the light to his new conservatory.

 

I also have a black and white attitude when someone moves into a house knowing there a a woodland at the bottom of their garden boundary and then rings me saying that there's not enough light in their back garden and that these trees make a mess when they drop leaves. They ask me how much to chop the tree down or cut it in half so there's not as many leaves.

 

The trees should have been a considerstion when they bought the house. I don't struggle for work round here, so I try and educate the numpties, if I can't do that and they persist in their request I take great pleasure in refusing, telling them it's cowboys they need to ring not tree surgeons and walking away.

 

What you need to remember here Skyhuck and Ed is there are novices reading this board and taking advice. You need to be fairly clear in what you deem as acceptable.

 

I would not, and do not and never have "topped" a perfectly healthy tree in a domestic enviroment. The day I do is the day I will give up Looking after trees.

 

Yes, you can take weight off an ailing tree and reduce weak limbs on an anceint tree, in the right enviroment, provided that an action plan has been put in place to safe guard members of the public or (as another endearing term) "ignorants".

 

I think we all have the same veiws, what has been wrote has been misread or misinterpretted. That is one of the problems with forums and written text.

A sentence can be read and taken one way oor totally another.

 

I am trying to be clear on this.

[Mr Ed]

Dean, I hear what your saying, and agree 100%, but even in your post you quote times where 'heavy pruning' might be applicable. I think that is where me and Huck are coming from - that sometimes there is a reason time and place for drastic action.

[Dean Lofthouse]

Crossed wires Ed.

 

Totally agree. As you already know, I have 3.5 acres of woodland. There is an access road running thru it. I've deadwooded along the access road where public walk but aren't supposed to.

 

I have however left the remaining woodland untouched. There are broken limbs and deadwood all over. To the point that if it's really windy I wouldn't walk thru without my helmet.

 

As a result I have a huge variety of birds visit and live within the woodland and log piles.

 

I also keep deadwood and rotting roots from jobs and stack it in little piles all over. As a result Wren and robin numbers within the wood have increased.

 

Last week in the winds a Huge Ash snapped in half and took half a small Oak with it. It is hung up but is safe, I am going to leave them as they are rather than take them out. They're in a spot where no public have access.

 

Like you say, there are places and circumstances where this can be done. We just need to make it clear what these circumstance are for the chaps and chappesses just starting out.

[Amelanchier]

I am a tree nazi! I stand for arbor supremacy! We must top the unclean filth that threatens us...

 

Calm down calm down...