poplar climbing.

[cerneARB]

Can you guys of vast experince give a newbie any tips on climbing poplars. we got a poplar reduction in a few weeks (after me hols) and i know there dodgy with a reputaion for branch failure. MEWP is out the question as there is no access for one btw.

 

Any advice from seasoned climbers would be appreicated.

Cheers.

[Lee Winger]

Don't tie in to anything smaller than the diameter of your calfs , as soon as the branch or trunk is going the way I want it , I very often nearly cut through the hinge, barber chairs very easy, and i hate chairs take smaller bites...

[Peter]

Make sure you use a sensible anchor point, use your lanyard and redirects where possible, and having taken sensible precautions, stop worrying about it breaking.

 

Poplars do suffer from something called summer branch drop, where they suddenly shed large limbs for no definative reason. The chances of that happening while you are standing on the branch are very small.

 

Is the tree you're reducing a lombardy, hybrid, or a black poplar?

[cerneARB]

Make sure you use a sensible anchor point, use your lanyard and redirects where possible, and having taken sensible precautions, stop worrying about it breaking.

 

Poplars do suffer from something called summer branch drop, where they suddenly shed large limbs for no definative reason. The chances of that happening while you are standing on the branch are very small.

 

Is the tree you're reducing a lombardy, hybrid, or a black poplar?

 

its a black poplar peter.

[Mike Hill]

Since your doing a reduction,it could be likely an old Pollard with some pretty skinny upright growthTo gain a higher anchor-point I used to link two or three individual upright "tops" together with Prusik's or you could use webbing slings.Snap a pulley into this system and you get all the tops moving together,it might be a bit wavey but it always worked for me.

[ecolojim]

Sorry to thread hijack, but to keep related information in one thread, what can anyone tell me about climbing lombardy's?? A mate of mine just up the road mentioned he wanted one of his larger specimens, to all intents and purposes topped and lopped. he wants it turning into a pole ready for a company to come in and fit a sizeable wind turbine to the top of it.

 

I shant be doing the work myself but it got me to thinking. How does one climb a lombardy for anything other than removal? Do you even bother? How would you set a rope to a point you can trust? Obviously for removal, you would spike it. All things id like to have in the old memory banks for future reference.

 

Most of you seem to hate them, I assume they are particularly weak?

[Paul Smith]

Sorry to thread hijack, but to keep related information in one thread, what can anyone tell me about climbing lombardy's?? A mate of mine just up the road mentioned he wanted one of his larger specimens, to all intents and purposes topped and lopped. he wants it turning into a pole ready for a company to come in and fit a sizeable wind turbine to the top of it.

 

I shant be doing the work myself but it got me to thinking. How does one climb a lombardy for anything other than removal? Do you even bother? How would you set a rope to a point you can trust? Obviously for removal, you would spike it. All things id like to have in the old memory banks for future reference.

 

Most of you seem to hate them, I assume they are particularly weak?

 

 

use a ladder for access, strop in, climb the tree as high as you dare go and either use a rope guide or a cambium saver with a couple of wraps around the main stem, decend and work back up. Be very carefull of re-growth!

[Mesterh]

I allways tie in around the main stem on any type of pop, the branch unions are very weak, easy to rip a piece out the thickness of your wrist by hand

I've taken out loads of lombardys but only really pruned a few.

They are s**t trees, dont think ive taken one down that didnt have some rot at the base.Allthough they are usually good to take down you can 'dart' the brash down quite quickly and they produce nice looking chip

[Peter]

Done some nightmare lombardies. The worst was one that had been topped, huge regrowth, loads of phone lines round it, all had to be roped down with only one groundie. When I took the top out, the tip brushed the wires on the way over, even though I took it higher than I liked.

 

I dont think you can really reduce a lombardy in the true sense of the term, although I'v topped plenty of them! If its a 50% "reduction" I really cant see that wearing spikes is going to exacerbate the massive amounts of damage you've already done to the tree by chopping it half!

[Steve Bullman]

ive never really found much of an issue with climbing poplars.....so long as the dentral anchor point is reasonable upright i'll anchor pretty high, obviously not as high as something more sturdy. i find it very easy wood to cut and manipulate and often dont need to get as far on the ends anyway because of this.