Avenue Species Change

[David Humphries]

Due to Phytopthora, (possible) Psuedomonas & Camararia, this avenue of Hundred year old Aesculus,

are in the process of having phased reductions and fells and are being replaced.

Rather than like for like (because of the afore mentioned), decision has been made to replant with Carpinus.

Any thoughts?

The avenue of approximately 50 trees is jointly managed by two LA's.

Both have signed up for the species change.

 

BTW..... in the forth pic, i gave serious consideration to this being his own grave instead of a planting pit, due to ripping off half the Iveco's bumper on one of the bollards !!!!!!!!!

[Marc]

Why reductions on infected Aesculus, been seeing it a lot recently if its infected they get hammered?

Am I missing something?

 

Those reductions look good though and not as severe as some i've seen latly.

[Peter]

I bloody hate the policy of replacing all the big species of street trees with small, easily managed ones. In 50 years time there will be no proper street trees in suburban areas in the UK, only endless miles of fastigiate hornbeam, sorbus, thorns, and more sorbus!

[David Humphries]

Why reductions on infected Aesculus, been seeing it a lot recently if its infected they get hammered?

Am I missing something?

 

Those reductions look good though and not as severe as some i've seen latly.

 

I can't really answer that comprehensively, as those reducs were prescibed by the other LA, and their contractors carried out the works on their half of the Avenue.

Those reduced trees will eventually be coming out and will be replaced with more Carpinus.

I'm guessing that the sail reductions are partly to do with the potentialy increased Wind Throw hazard, that is due to almost half of their trees already having been felled.

 

To expand the overall picture further, the other half of the avenue is within a Park.

These trees suffer far less root compaction and vehicle damage.

Two of these trees have been removed and replaced with Carpinus inside the Park, this was due to Decay and Phytopthora respectively.

[bob]

Why reductions on infected Aesculus, been seeing it a lot recently if its infected they get hammered?

Am I missing something?

 

Those reductions look good though and not as severe as some i've seen latly.

 

you must be looking at different photos to me

[Marc]

you must be looking at different photos to me

 

I don't like to slag off other peoples work, and besides it looks like the at least half the foliage area has been left intact, which looks good to me.

[Amelanchier]

Due to Phytopthora, (possible) Psuedomonas & Camararia, this avenue of Hundred year old Aesculus,

are in the process of having phased reductions and fells and are being replaced.

Rather than like for like (because of the afore mentioned), decision has been made to replant with Carpinus.

Any thoughts?

 

What else can you do?

 

Diseases aside (and I for one think there's a bit too much hype and frenzy about Cameraria) what you have there is a group of trees reaching the end of their safe useful life expectancy. Add into that what we know about the structure and compartmentalisation ability of Aesculus and what other plan of action is there? Pollarding?

 

Trees come and go. I agree with Peter though, the landscape character of large trees is not always considered when it comes to replanting specs.

 

Don't forget flowering cherries Peter. Miles and miles of flowering cherries. yawn.

[David Humphries]

 

Toataly agree Tony,

 

this is not based on sientific proof, but merely observations on what i have seen in and around London this year -

there appears to have been a small but significant reduction on the impact of Cameraria on Chestnuts.

Possibly climatic, but its also possible that Indiginous Miner predators have started to jump species and could be making an impact on the mortality survival rate of Cameraria,

which i think was running at about 80/90% success as opposed to indiginous Leaf Miners which run at about 30/40%. This i believe helps create and maintain a natural balance between Predator and Prey.

 

Any other views on this?

[Lee Winger]

Why an earth didn't they spend a few quid on root treatments? I wish tree officers and contractors etc would open their eyes to alternatives, before condeming beutifull trees to the chop, at least give the trees a chance, ah what the hell it only took 100yrs for them to grow..

 

And why on earth waste money on phased removals? talk about a waste of rate payers money!

[Amelanchier]

Lee, could you do rootwork on those trees in the avenue pic? You'ld have to take out slabs or is the small area around the base still viable for your machine?

 

As for the miner, my understanding is that its range and intensity currently have more to do with our climatic variations than our attempts at control methods. Unfortunatley, most parasites are host-specific but adaption is not impossible.

 

I think a larger problem exists culturally with the public concept of disease. People I have spoken to see disease going hand in hand with rot and therefore danger.

 

I often point out that not all diseases are fatal or incapacitating. Tree acne/eczema.