Look at this.

[bob]

could the spec have been a crown clean

certainly looks like they scrubbed it all away:biggrin:

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Ummm i dont know what the original thread was here as it seems stuff has beed deleted or i just dont know what i am doing on here as yet BUT!! thats a big BUT! I have been doing this job for about 20 years now and i have admittedly done a few pollards in my time which i now regret very much as i now know better. A pollard should be done ONLY as a last resort. If the tree is in bad shape and dying back on major limbs etc and becoming dangerous to the point where removal seems the only option, then a pollard can be done to at least try to save the tree from complete removal, if the tree is to be kept. I can understand that you may find "veteran tree handbook" and this sort of thing interesting and they may have some valid points in them (cant say i have read them) but i have been taught and continue to read many things from many good scientists and tree people like shigo and mattheck etc who have studied in great detail and with modern scientific methods about this very subject and not one of them say its a good thing. So i am confused that Harrison here is being told differently by Hamadryad. If i have misunderstood then i am sorry but i have read other posts by you Hamadryad and you seem very knowledgeable so could you please explain why it seems you are going against everything that modern arboriculture is teaching us? I have seen the problems and the damage that pollarding does to trees first hand and it makes me sad that it is still practised today. I for one will never do it again and have refused many jobs where i have been asked to do so.

I hope i got the wrong end of the stick here (excuse the pun) but should we not stand up against these methods and the people who practice them? I would love to name and shame any company i have heard of that does this and the "its what the customer wants" excuse just does not wash with me. A simple "no missus sorry i wont do that to a healthy tree, here is what i suggest instead and why" normally works for me. Information is generally what a customer lacks and i can give it and am happy to do so.

Anyway sorry if i have gone on a bit but i do feel strongly about this topic. Can someone please explain if i got this right or wrong?

 

I know of the work done by both shigo and mattheck, I am a student of arboriculture, not a slave to the ideas of my mentors. Progression is brought about through understanding. Shigo was mainly a forester funded as such and is really partly responsible for the massive misunderstanding and fear of decay, in no way shape nor form did he ever describe the important relationships decay fungi have with trees. His was thwe work of "forest protection" a term that is responsible for a great deal of misguided practice. He may well be a godfather of modern arboriculture, but he is also to blame for a great deal of the lack of willing to prune and understand its role in tree managment. His coining of the pphrase "the demons of D" was one of those defining moments in history that set a path in stone.

 

As for mattheck, he is a lover of nature, thats what inspired him to develop a system that was as close to nature as possible for tree assesment, so that we could live with trees, and he loves a pollard, they are the "chattiest of trees":001_cool:

 

BOTH great men, who are MY heros too:001_cool:

 

as for me, I am as I said no slave to my mentors, I love the pollard, it is a very good technique, and it is also one of the best ways of maintaining old growth and its decay within the urban context.

 

Between the shigoesque standpoint and the pollarders world view there is a happy healthy bio diverse medium that allows for decay but is also in empathy with the organism/s

[David Goss]

Maybe i am getting mixed up with pollard and topping i dont know i thought it was the same thing, but all i do know is i dont like either. To me changing the structure of a tree by pollarding or topping or whatever you want to call it is wrong. I see the massive cavities in trees that have had this done and i have cut down topped/pollarded trees that have rot all the way to the base because of the damage inflicted years before, I see the many unstable and falling apart trees that is in no doubt for me the result of this practice. I see all this with my own eyes, so forgive me for saying i think you are completely wrong in this because i cant go against what i see with my own eyes. Plus a tree that has had this done is damned ugly and not natural. You sound like a very well educated guy hamadryad but i need to see solid proof that what you say is true because all i have seen so far is decaying trees that have a much shorter and dangerous life ahead of them. They are chatting for all the wrong reasons these "chattiest of trees"

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Maybe i am getting mixed up with pollard and topping i dont know i thought it was the same thing, but all i do know is i dont like either. To me changing the structure of a tree by pollarding or topping or whatever you want to call it is wrong. I see the massive cavities in trees that have had this done and i have cut down topped/pollarded trees that have rot all the way to the base because of the damage inflicted years before, I see the many unstable and falling apart trees that is in no doubt for me the result of this practice. I see all this with my own eyes, so forgive me for saying i think you are completely wrong in this because i cant go against what i see with my own eyes. Plus a tree that has had this done is damned ugly and not natural. You sound like a very well educated guy hamadryad but i need to see solid proof that what you say is true because all i have seen so far is decaying trees that have a much shorter and dangerous life ahead of them. They are chatting for all the wrong reasons these "chattiest of trees"

 

This statement above just proves that you havent taken the time to really look into the practice, thats not a criticism. Pollards live MANY years often centuries longer as pollards than as maidens, FACT.

 

Hollowing is NATURAL, in AL trees of an age, pollarding may speed the proscess up, but it also lowers all the mechanical stress imposed on the ancients hollow shells and makes a viable long term future a very real possibility.

 

They are chatty because of thier ages, age that they could not attain without this practice.

[David Goss]

You are right i have not really looked into the practice, i am a more hands on practical guy and admittedly not a great studier of books although i have read many that give reasons not to do this. I still see no proof? all i see is ugly dying trees that i get called out to take down because bits keep falling off them.... Do you have pictures of these pollards that look so good and are so healthy? i can post many pictures of the ugly, rotting, cavity ridden ones but i have yet to see a nice safe one. Please enlighten me

[David Humphries]

You are right i have not really looked into the practice, i am a more hands on practical guy and admittedly not a great studier of books although i have read many that give reasons not to do this. I still see no proof? all i see is ugly dying trees that i get called out to take down because bits keep falling off them.... Do you have pictures of these pollards that look so good and are so healthy? i can post many pictures of the ugly, rotting, cavity ridden ones but i have yet to see a nice safe one. Please enlighten me

 

 

 

Have a look & read through this thread David.

 

 

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/general-chat/12367-pollards-forgotten-art-discussion.html

 

.

[Bolt]

You are right i have not really looked into the practice, i am a more hands on practical guy and admittedly not a great studier of books although i have read many that give reasons not to do this. I still see no proof? all i see is ugly dying trees that i get called out to take down because bits keep falling off them.... Do you have pictures of these pollards that look so good and are so healthy? i can post many pictures of the ugly, rotting, cavity ridden ones but i have yet to see a nice safe one. Please enlighten me

 

Have a look into it then :-)

 

Arbtalk to the rescue.....

 

start here for general debate.

 

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/general-chat/22967-pollarding.html

 

and this has some good (and not so good) examples

 

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/picture-forum/5149-way-they-pollard-limes-glasgow.html

 

 

enjoy

[David Goss]

Ok i have been reading and you got my attention. I must say i am still in no way convinced and i am going to need a lot more to sway what i believe.... my mind is open lets see what you got.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Ok i have been reading and you got my attention. I must say i am still in no way convinced and i am going to need a lot more to sway what i believe.... my mind is open lets see what you got.

 

I know this work is long and hard, I/we have a great task ahead, there has been much written on the negatives and little to enlighten on the methods virtues.

 

I am always looking to ways to open the eyes of those that have a disdain and or lack of understanding, but I promise you, when you truly learn to appreciate the tree for its biological/morphological capacity you too will learn to love these trees, they have so much to offer, for us they offer a unique opportunity to witness their amazing strategies for survival, for modification and also the great and often now very rare life that has only survived to this day and age because of pollarding.

 

It isnt really for me to convince you, but I assure you if you take the time to study them and to visit some of the best examples of pollards you will find it very hard to ignore your natural empathy for these amazing trees.

[David Goss]

I know this work is long and hard, I/we have a great task ahead, there has been much written on the negatives and little to enlighten on the methods virtues.

 

I am always looking to ways to open the eyes of those that have a disdain and or lack of understanding, but I promise you, when you truly learn to appreciate the tree for its biological/morphological capacity you too will learn to love these trees, they have so much to offer, for us they offer a unique opportunity to witness their amazing strategies for survival, for modification and also the great and often now very rare life that has only survived to this day and age because of pollarding.

 

It isnt really for me to convince you, but I assure you if you take the time to study them and to visit some of the best examples of pollards you will find it very hard to ignore your natural empathy for these amazing trees.

[ATTACH]62195[/ATTACH]

 

Damn you replied already! i was just about to delete that post cos i realised i hadnt read all of the other thread

i also commented on other post thinking there was only 1 page doh!

I will get back to you on this but for now i gotta go.