Huge lime trees, never been pruned

[Mesuno]

Hi Folks,

 

The field adjacent to our house has an ancient avenue of lime trees passing through it - probably about 30 trees in all. Most years we have had some substantial timber falls during storms; either large branches or whole trunks. Many of the trees seem full of vigour, but others are clearly in decline, with obvious rot in the trunks. There is one that we can see daylight right through.

 

Anyway, I guess my question is about how we can conserve the trees for the long term. And indeed if we should?
 

• Some trees have HUGE limbs that are near horizontal. I look at them and think they are going to rip the tree apart with their weight. Would it be reasonable to reduce the length of these somewhat?
• A lot of the more decrepit trees have knot holes, rotten trunks and cavities. We know we have owls, woodpeckers and other things in them. Are there any issues with leaving them as they are, expecting that they will fall over the next few years?
• Going back a decade or so, the field had cows in it, and the browse line was at about 7ft. More recently the field has had sheep and the browse line is now at about 3ft, substantially impacting the view. I've been tempted at various points to take out a few of the weeping/hanging branches that drop down very low - at least in some spots where the view is most obscured.
• Short of a few fence lines, and perhaps an unlucky sheep, there is nothing for any of these trees to hit when they fall, so there is no real urgency to this work.
• My understanding and personal experience is that lime resprouts vigorously when cut. Is that likely to be true on these old trees? 
• The law of unintended consequences is a PITA - anything not so obvious I should be considering?

Cheers

 

Mike

[Gary Prentice]

Ancient/veteran tree avenue management! This should turn into an interesting thread with lots of different answers.

 

'Management' is a really loose term and how you go about things is dependent on what you want from it. Originally they were planted as landscape features and as such were fairly dependent on evenly spaced, evenly sized trees. Once trees start to fail and decline there are some real hard decisions to make. I think it's pretty much agreed that to restore the original intention, you fell the lot and start again.

 

On the other hand, if you want a couple of rows of veteran and ancient trees for ecological habitats, do you need to do anything? particularly where 'risk management' isn't a requirement.  Whether or not they would resprout well after pruning is likely to be dependent on how much vitality individual trees have. I know that Burleigh House (sp?) recreated some of their avenues (over a mile long and four rows of trees) from cuttings taken from coppice growth from a number of trees (of a particular old clonal variety) that were felled. I think these were 2-300 yr old trees, Capability Brown planted them originally)

 

Are the limbs that you're concerned about 'over-extended'? Projecting beyond the rest of the canopy? These are the ones that ring alarm bells, but all we can really say is that they are more likely to fail because of this, not predict that they will. And then again, would it really matter if they did apart from reducing the predicted lifespan of the tree because of decay on a large tear-out wound. 

 

What you do may depend on how much time and money you've got. You may want to do some sympathetic pruning, in an attempt to render particular trees or limbs more wind-safe and extend their lives, or do nothing and let them decline naturally. Have you got a local ancient/veteran tree group? They might be the best people to contact, to see them and discuss some of the management options. If your lucky they will be a consultant amongst the membership who can give some on the spot advice (and if not they'd probably enjoy the opportunity to visit).

 

Sorry that I've provided more questions than answers.

 

EDIT: Where are you based?

Edited June 4, 2018 by Gary Prentice

[Mesuno]

Thanks Gary, I think you have assessed the situation pretty well. We are located near Canterbury, in Kent.

 

I’m not sure when the original Avenue was planted, but it is certainly old. Some of the original tree have obviously died many years ago, so there are gaps. We have replanted some limes to fill some gaps, and they are doing nicely.

 

i guess we are not particularly concerned about the “original intention” of uniform trees, but it would be nice to at least preserve what we have where possible.

 

Regarding “overextended” limbs - yes, there is one tree in particular which I think sustained damage early in it’s life and grew more vigorous side branches than many of its taller neighbours. These extend about twice as far as most of the other trees limbs, and there is a lot of weight in them. The tree is otherwise very vigorous and strong, but some of those branches give me the heebie-jeebies.

 

I’ll have a dig and see if there is some kind of veteran tree society in the area.

[AHPP]

They’re only trees. Leave them to it if there isn’t an orphanage under them. Alternatively, if you want some firewood and something to do, pollard the lot. You’ll be a capable climber by the time you’ve finished.

[AHPP]

They’re only trees. Leave them to it if there isn’t an orphanage under them. Alternatively, if you want some firewood and something to do, pollard the lot. You’ll be a capable climber by the time you’ve finished.

[Gary Prentice]

On 04/06/2018 at 20:50, Mesuno said:

We have replanted some limes to fill some gaps, and they are doing nicely.

  

i guess we are not particularly concerned about the “original intention” of uniform trees, but it would be nice to at least preserve what we have where possible

What about preserving the original variety used in the planting. I don't know too much about the older varieties, but some have particular growth habits that a factor in their selection for use. Burleigh propagated hundreds of vegetative cuttings from coppice growth to replant one particular avenue, that I know about. If nothing else it might be an interesting project.

 

I wish you were closer, it sounds like an interesting site.

[Mesuno]

That is an interesting idea, not one that we had thought about when we first planted some replacements. I can see a few ways that we might clone some of the old trees. For example, at least one of the old trees that fell has some regrowth from it's base. I could probably cut it back, and mound it up with sawdust, then come back in a 18 months or so and divide the new sprouts with their root systems - similar to how fruit tree root stocks are propogated. I can see that gap filling will be an ongoing project over the next 50 years or so.