how much do tree surgeons earn

[Joe Newton]

Cheers dude, that oak wasn't a quick job by any means. A day and a half in the pissing rain from memory

[NickinMids]

Got my first reduction to do just after xmas.  Only done removals, dead wooding, thinning small stuff and re pollarding to date but fully agree that no spikes out at the tips is much slower.  Not worried if it takes me a long time as its a learning experience in so much as the climbing goes.

What worries me is butchering it by not having someone with an eye on the ground.  Not sure how you approach sections where there is no obvious pruning point.  Its a birch and wont stand hacking. Its not TPO but I don't want to butcher it but do want to try it.  Are there any pointers or is it just a case of do it and learn

 

[MattyF]

Do it and learn nick, try and stand on the ground and look at it for 5mins over a coffee visualise a shape and pick points you can ident in the tree and get in and start cutting , I’ll usually do the high stuff first and just keep going around in sections so you can clean out hangers as well as not brake out already pruned bits.
Looks like a hard tree to get wrong plenty of targets to prune and drop back too.

[jfc]

Got my first reduction to do just after xmas.  Only done removals, dead wooding, thinning small stuff and re pollarding to date but fully agree that no spikes out at the tips is much slower.  Not worried if it takes me a long time as its a learning experience in so much as the climbing goes.
What worries me is butchering it by not having someone with an eye on the ground.  Not sure how you approach sections where there is no obvious pruning point.  Its a birch and wont stand hacking. Its not TPO but I don't want to butcher it but do want to try it.  Are there any pointers or is it just a case of do it and learn
 

Look a good tree to reduce. Probably not been done before and lots of places to take it back to. Hope you have someone roadside to help manage traffic.

[jfc]

Got my first reduction to do just after xmas.  Only done removals, dead wooding, thinning small stuff and re pollarding to date but fully agree that no spikes out at the tips is much slower.  Not worried if it takes me a long time as its a learning experience in so much as the climbing goes.
What worries me is butchering it by not having someone with an eye on the ground.  Not sure how you approach sections where there is no obvious pruning point.  Its a birch and wont stand hacking. Its not TPO but I don't want to butcher it but do want to try it.  Are there any pointers or is it just a case of do it and learn
 

Look a good tree to reduce. Probably not been done before and lots of places to take it back to. Hope you have someone roadside to help manage traffic.

[NickinMids]

Thanks both.  Don't worry I'll have a groundy but not someone with an experienced eye for sighting.

 

 

[jfc]

You'll be fine then, easy half day job.

[Mick Dempsey]

Sighters are a waste of time by and large.

 

Reducing trees by committee is time consuming.

[maybelateron]

44 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Sighters are a waste of time by and large.

 

Reducing trees by committee is time consuming.

Yeah but no but yeah:

 

I largely feel I can tell where to make each cut either from the mewp or climbing, but sometimes a good groundie will spot things you simply can't gauge from the tree.

 

[maybelateron]

On 13/12/2018 at 20:12, NickinMids said:

Got my first reduction to do just after xmas.  Only done removals, dead wooding, thinning small stuff and re pollarding to date but fully agree that no spikes out at the tips is much slower.  Not worried if it takes me a long time as its a learning experience in so much as the climbing goes.

What worries me is butchering it by not having someone with an eye on the ground.  Not sure how you approach sections where there is no obvious pruning point.  Its a birch and wont stand hacking. Its not TPO but I don't want to butcher it but do want to try it.  Are there any pointers or is it just a case of do it and learn

 

I always make sure a customer is fully aware that anything other than very light reduction on Silver Birch usually results on rot setting in fairly quickly in the pruning cuts. That way they can't complain after the usual scenario of "I want you to take more off than that".

Purely a personal view but I hate reducing Birches, I prefer to leave them alone, raise them, or fell them. That's not intended as a criticism  of your planned work at all, just a recognition of how challenging it is. I'd love to see some pics of the result. Have fun.