Crazy lady and co-dominent/storm damaged European Lime

[Patchwork]

I went to see a woman in Feltham yesterday about some tree work. She has a beutiful garden, with one of the biggest Beech in somthing or other (which may just be crazy lady talk). She wanted me to origionaly top a Pice abies, which i refused to do as it would be no benifit to her or the tree, when looking around in her garden, which was amazing to see in an area so close to london. i noticed a large 80-90ft co-dominent lime, on the left stem about 3m from the top their was a mass of regrowth, which looks like its from a snapped out stem, the lime is growing up from about 8 rare bird averies with things like falcons and eagle owls in. basically i would just like to know how lime deals with decay. am climbing it in about a weeks time to see if it would be best to totally take the co-dominent stem out that has the storm damage.

[Steve Bullman]

there will almost certainly be a rot in the wound if its been there any time.

[Mac McLennan]

Any Photo's?

[Bundle 2]

Hi Patchwork....CODIT (compartmentalisation of decay in trees ) a system identified and explained by Alex Shigo....well worth reading the basics frankly...Lime will as Steve says rot relatively soon as hardwoods go but generalisations are only ever really that!!!

Unions of regrowth to the damaged stem are highly likely to be poor with this species. ( ie weak )

[Peter]

Totally removing the co-dominant stem may be a bit excessive, if the stem removed is of significant size it will leave a major pruning wound at a critical point on the stem, not good for prolonging it's life expectancy, especially as lime decays easily and quickly.

 

Perhaps a better solution would be to remove any dead or broken branches at the top, and then either thin the regrowth or reduce the stem to a suitable lateral.

[Patchwork]

dont have any pics, camera was dead. when i go and climb it next week to check what is going on at the regrowth points i will take alot. yeah i was thinking aout recucing the stem to a suitable lateral, cos at the moment its just a mass of really thin but very leafy regrowth. would be seriously bad news if any thing fell onto the birds of prey underneath. their is alot alot of dead wood and die back on the stormdamage stem, would it be a suitable method to take a rubber hammer up with my when i climb and just check for decay on the way up? may need to set up some sort of rigging or a zip line as their is no drop zone below at all.

[Bundle 2]

Not rubber mate....nylon.

( Thor No' 7 )

[Patchwork]

ok, but will that be a good way of deciding where to take it back to? i also studyed a fair bit about CODIT for a college assignment i did, one of the most intresting thing we looked at all year.