Ancient Trees – Free Workshop

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

I have found that even the most enlightened American Arborists I know look blank faced when you mention Rayner and Boddy.

 

It is a real problem, from my very very limited exposure to Alex Shigo, he struck me as a man who recognised the dangers of raising any individual or any one theory to the level of a deity with commandments. Whilst I am certain the fame that accompanied his published works was more than welcome he did at least state that when you stop learning you are dead, and that CODIT is a MODEL...to help interpret biological and physical alterations in wood tissues following wounding.

 

I tend to think he would be more upset than most at the way in which quoting his works is oft used to obstruct the normal and essential extension of ideas and development of concepts within our profession.

 

I had a similar conversation with Francis Schwarze when he was over here with David, Ted, Jill and Andrew.

 

We really are only just beginning to get a glimpse of the depth of complex associations and relations between trees and the masses of other organisms that surround them....to use a Shigo quote...we often mistake the artifact for the whole system, the model for reality.

 

Good post!

 

It does strike me that a lot of folk, especialy the yanks, took only a small aspect of what shigo was trying to say and ran with it. I am certain had he been around today he would be correcting this over simplification of the demons of D. Shigo understood the whole, the eco system, but somehow a lot of this seems to get lost in translation.

 

I love decay, as much as trees, didnt always, but Ive grown to not only appreciate fungi and thier roles but the dynamic relationships and complex flow of the arboreal eco system.

 

Maybe we should all coin a new phrase- The delights of D