Rotten trunk advice appreciated

[Bob Rolfe]

to me the tree looks quite clearly worse for the weather and it ain`t gunna get better.....put it out of its misery and if you don`t like gettting rid plant a couple more

[David oakman]

I have an old hornbeam which fell over most of the root ball came up but it still lives. I think i have not been in that wood this year yet.

[minty]

I have a medium hornbeam that has rotted down the middle, it's a very lopsided tree and it's overhanging a (private) path so I think it needs to come down. Do you agree ?

 

What do the people whose path it is want?.That is what I would need to know,lol.

[gmanntpo]

Make safe and replace!!

[Catweazle]

Thanks All, it's cracked further so it's coming down. There are plenty more there, I'm going to keep the trunk intact and roll it out of the way then prop it up against an earth bank so the beetles can continue eating it.

[gmanntpo]

Excellent solution mate!

[scuff]

Best solution get rid re plant, to much retention of knackered trees by pointless surgery, not enough planting of new stock and what is planted is forgotten about or poorly maintained. Rant over!!!!

[gmanntpo]

Scuff

 

You are so damm right, there can be abit of an obsession in the tree industry to retain trees that have outlived there useful life!

 

Fell and plant 2 for 1 for so the next generation can enjoy them!!

 

Cheers dude!

[Andy Collins]

I took out a veteran hornbeam pollard yesterday. At 10feet the tree was sound as a pound, at the fell height (4feet) it as dodgy as heck. The remaining stump just crumbled to little bits when the digger tugged on it, the tree was over a driveway, little kids cycling up and down all summer holidays. I showed t he client what had actualy held the tree up, and he was horrified. Will be re-planting with nice specimen fastigiate hornbeam later on.

[Catweazle]

I cut the old hornbeam down today. The rot was down to below ground level, and the whole middle of the trunk is spalted, but that wasn't the problem, it had been rotting for years. The sign that things were moving in a bad way was the sharp fresh wood splinters pushing out from the side of the trunk at right angles to the lean, although the centre was rotten 2/3 of the outside was sound, just not enough of it left to support the tree. The trunk was rapidly splitting in half.

 

I paced it out on the ground at 60ft, most of the branches were on one side and it landed on them, they shattered. I was pleased that it landed exactly where I wanted it to and didn't damage any other trees, I was a bit worried that it might land on the branches and roll, but they snapped off like matchsticks.

 

I cut off the roots on one side first to leave a flat vertical surface, then cut out the notch from there. In truth my saw was a bit too small at 18" and I had to do a bit from both sides, it came out well though. The tree started to creak alarmingly after the notch and it didn't take much more cutting before she went over.

 

Very different from my usual coppiced chestnut, hopefully I'll never have to cut down a tree of that size again.

 

As suggested in this thread, I'm going to plant three or four replacements around the stump and choose the best two to leave in a few years.

 

Thanks All.