70 ft Poplar Re-Pollard

[TIMON]

 

A few pics (with a crap phone camera) of this pop job today. It was first pollarded about 15 years ago.

Was a bit tricky in the wind. We'd already postponed it twice so we pushed it through today.

Not a very pretty job but we're glad to have it finished.

[NickinMids]

Of the few jobs I've done I found re pollards to be the hardest. Mind you they were TPOs so no spikes. I found few anchor points below the re sprout and none hardly above

[TIMON]

Once we had gone back to the original pollard unions the customer wanted it cut below them. Cleaning up was a pain.... Spread over 5 gardens.

[10 Bears]

Once we had gone back to the original pollard unions the customer wanted it cut below them.

 

I'm not having a go here New Guy Ti - so please don't take it that way. I'm just trying to inform as this is something I repeatedly see with arborists that think they are repollarding, and it seems your customer has got the wrong idea too...

 

The whole point of creating a pollard is that a 'Boll' is formed - in fact pollarding is more correctly called Bolling ie work that makes a Boll in the tree.

 

What you really want to happen, is after the first years cutting, the callus wood forms over the first cut, and from the callus the new shoots grow. The callus will form what is also called a knuckle, or more correctly a Boll.

 

In repeat iterations of Bolling (pollarding) you are meant to cut marginally above the Boll and not into, through or below it so that the tree can reform additional callus over the smaller secondary or tertiary cuts, without having to reform the callus over the original cut. I hope that explanation makes sense!

 

What I often see from other peoples work is that they cut through the first Boll, or worse, cut below it so that the tree has to repeatedly generate the initial callus each time it is cut. Unfortunately this is not Bolling/pollarding as some believe - it is re-topping.

 

The attached image is an example of good Bolling/pollarding. The knobbly bit at the end of the branch is the formed Boll, and the smaller branches that grew out of it and were removed show only a small surface area that the callus has to grow over - which is what you really want to happen in this operation so that the tree doesn't have to loose resources trying to repeatedly overcome being topped each year.

 

If done correctly Bolling will keep the tree healthy for many years to come. However, incorrect chainsaw 'pollarding' will eventually allow fungal pathogens to enter the tree's wounds and may cause its untimely demise.

 

Either way, Im sure you did the right thing for the customer, and I hope that this public service announcement on Bolling helps some out there to know what a real 'pollard' is!

 

[TIMON]

Nice one 10 bears. That makes perfect sense.

Re-pollarding is what we set out to do but the customer changed her mind.

I appreciate the info.

[TTS North]

new guy ti - I can't see much rigging detail there, how did you get the taller growth down under control?

[skyhuck]

I'm not having a go here New Guy Ti - so please don't take it that way. I'm just trying to inform as this is something I repeatedly see with arborists that think they are repollarding, and it seems your customer has got the wrong idea too...

 

The whole point of creating a pollard is that a 'Boll' is formed - in fact pollarding is more correctly called Bolling ie work that makes a Boll in the tree.

 

What you really want to happen, is after the first years cutting, the callus wood forms over the first cut, and from the callus the new shoots grow. The callus will form what is also called a knuckle, or more correctly a Boll.

 

In repeat iterations of Bolling (pollarding) you are meant to cut marginally above the Boll and not into, through or below it so that the tree can reform additional callus over the smaller secondary or tertiary cuts, without having to reform the callus over the original cut. I hope that explanation makes sense!

 

What I often see from other peoples work is that they cut through the first Boll, or worse, cut below it so that the tree has to repeatedly generate the initial callus each time it is cut. Unfortunately this is not Bolling/pollarding as some believe - it is re-topping.

 

The attached image is an example of good Bolling/pollarding. The knobbly bit at the end of the branch is the formed Boll, and the smaller branches that grew out of it and were removed show only a small surface area that the callus has to grow over - which is what you really want to happen in this operation so that the tree doesn't have to loose resources trying to repeatedly overcome being topped each year.

 

If done correctly Bolling will keep the tree healthy for many years to come. However, incorrect chainsaw 'pollarding' will eventually allow fungal pathogens to enter the tree's wounds and may cause its untimely demise.

 

Either way, Im sure you did the right thing for the customer, and I hope that this public service announcement on Bolling helps some out there to know what a real 'pollard' is!

 

 

This is all true, BUT a Pop like this is never going to make a good pollard, IMO, this work really is just managed decline.

[Mountain man]

Yes, poplar management.

Plant, wait, hack, wait, hack, wait, hack, fell.

Works well.

[TIMON]

new guy ti - I can't see much rigging detail there, how did you get the taller growth down under control?

 

 

Tts, we only rigged 4 stems down with a simple butt-tie above the pulley. The rest we crashed.