Need help on pruning and pollarding!

[geoff]

i very rarely get to do pollards its either fell or reduce round here, interesting learning little things like that though ahhh that point in your life when you get to drinking sherry say no more

 

Ok...Hic.........................

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

some trees can take it, a youthfull early mature oak can handle it, being stripped to the knuckles so to speak, as can ash, sycamore, chestnut, even beech, yes I said BEECH! so what!

 

as a tree ages, it becomes more and more important to observe its physiological condition, look for the signs of health and vigour, if they are present it will most likley be fine to go full strip, otherwise be a little more sympathetic. In all cases sap risers are a good idea, try to imagine that the tree has to use reserve to grow till its leaves form again, this is very demanding and debilitating, opening up a tree to pathogens as it strives to grow leaves and shoots to produce food again.

 

pollarding is a perfectly viable managment technique, but it must be done with experience of tree vigour and physiology and local environment issues like the dominant parasites in the area. for instance you wouldnt want to pollard a chestnut in an area where Polyporus squamosus or Ganoderma australe are the dominat decayers, these two will find a home in a freshly pollarded chestnut and demolish it in a decade.

[wildwood-dwt]

Thanks cricket t thats what i thought. But with the staffolds hes leaves a few with grow points on? Should you strip all of it off? He getting me to reduce a 60 foot ash next week by 50 percentage thats to much to take off aint it?

 

50% is too much, however unfortunatly as much of an education you gain in arboriculture one fact remains the same the client is always right! you can advise against it but in my experiance the public in general hold light in higher esteem then having a healthy tree!

If you dont do it someone else will!