Marc

Re-planting can be a personal thing, give them a list to choose from. What I know about bleeding canker is it worse on poorly drained soils something to do with water spreading the infection. It affects Silver Birch all Chesnuts (well not sure about sweet/castenea but that gets big) and Oaks. So maybe something like Magnolia Grandiflora, its evergreen with large attractive leaves and big flowers. Not so Keen on Magnolia Soulagaena, Magnolia x loebneri is one of the nicest decidous ones, which has scented flowers. Robina psuedoaccacia "Aurea" golden leaved variety. Catalpa bignonoides, Indian bean tree, is a good tree, but may be to big. Cornus alternifolia, wedding cake tree is intresting. Judas Tree Whitebeam etc but those are just what I like and can think of that are small'ish and should be tolerant of bleeding canker.

a 360 is an older model and I did'nt rate it, the 361 is one Stihl latest generations of saw, high revving and steel springs/rubber for AV's instead of just rubber, which makes it a very comfy low vibration saw to use. From re-reading your post, I see you have 2 small saws, the 350 is alomst equivilient to a 260, I had one my first saw in fact and liked it, put a 16" bar on it and it runs real good, I ran mine with 18". To save confusion, and i'm not saying jonsered or other brands are bad, its just Stihl and Husky dealers are easier to come by. I'd go for either a 361, there is also the 341 this is exactly the same as a 361 just slightly de-tuned and a little cheaper. I'd reccomend the 361 as it will still give you a long life and that little bit of extra performance is noticable. Both good saws tho. The problem is your 350 is a 50cc saw a 361 is 60cc so its not a huge step up, you may find the 350 will tackle most things the 361 can. So for a real upgarde and investment a 70cc saw may be better. In which case a 372, or 440/441, the 440 is an older model but still avaible and is a very good saw. the 441 is the newer type with steel springs and other improvements, i've heard a lot of good things about this saw. If it was me i'd get a 372, good value good performance and in the middle of your budget. Its a lot of saw though mate, maybe overkill.

The 575's i've used have been nothing but trouble, 372 all the way.

That must of been a nightmare mate, I still get vision of nearly taking a groundie out, i'm certain the helmet would not have saved him. The guy in question was a climber I ground for him most days, but this time I was climbing, it was a smash it down Ash job. I was cutting as big a bits as poss, then he'd come in and process as I moved. I got into position looked down to him, got eye contact and gave him the "nod" I then made my cut, just as I was finishing my back cut I quickly looked down to double check and to my horror he was under me processing the last bit I cut! I stopped grabbed the branch but could'nt stop it, I yelled but he could'nt hear me with his saw going. The branch smashed down barley 1 meter beside him. Scared the **** out of me more than him! Now i'm super cautious. What bugged me, is the eye contact and nod thing is what he always did when I was on the ground to let me know he was about to knock another piece out, when I did it to him he thought it was permission to enter drop zone. Why did he not see from my position I was about to cut? He did take responsabilty that he made a mistake, but that did not make me feel any better. I've been struck by to, again it was due to a break down of cummunication, climber knocking bits out before all clear from ground crew. Thats why I firmly believe the ground is just as if not more dangerous than climbing.

I think its a nice light weight helmet, good for rec and summer climbing. I personally went for a Black Diamond half dome which is seriously light, Although I do not like the polystyrene it does'nt leave much of an air gap so the venting is not as good as my Vertex. I'll mainly use the BD is summer as i'll use ear plugs and glasses. The Vertex is still tops in my opinion, its just so practical and well thought out, I love the simplicity of ear muffs and visor, much easier to flip up and lift off for communicating. I think my white Vertex is cooler to wear in summer too, especially without ear muffs. I saw this Elios on a website, it has a sort of face shield, mainly for ice climbing.

Can't wait to see the pics, i'll be mostly driving a long wheelbase U1650? towing a 16" Vermeer in the new year, Unimogs rock

Oh yeah and don't rule out a Husky 372 (roughly the same cc as a 440/1 but better if my memory is good) another awesome saw and good value i've seen them for around 500 quid.

361 with 15" bar jeez that thing must fly Adam. I have a 361 and love it, its a little heavier than a smaller 260 but has bags more power to weight ratio, I run mine with an 18" bar and fell trees upto 25-30" fairly easily when needed, but generally use it for everything i'e snedding, ringing up, blocking down and all round ground saw. I've heard some of the yanks run this with a 25" its a little big for this saw but would be okay for felling I suppose. 440/441 is also a good saw but quite a bit heavier suits a 20" bar nicely runs really well with 18", generally i'd only use this for felling, ringing up and blocking down bigger stuff. Not as a general groundsaw. 660 is awesome and pulls a 25" bar nicley and i'd imagine would fly with an 18", but only use this for big fells, big blocking down and ringing up. My vote would be go for a 361, then once your established get a 660 for the bigger stuff, a 200t + 361 + 660 is all the saws you'd ever really need as a subbie.

Only time I've used it soley to reduce a tree was Tolkiens tree in Oxford which is a hollow Sycamore thats no longer safe to climb, to reduce the foliage clusters with secatuers, which happens every 2-4 years. Other than that we have used one to reduce the sides whilst someone else climbs the top and sorts out the center of the tree, again pretty rare, and not really any quicker or easier.

I'm not a fan of the new style ISC capstan/porta wrap, I don't know wether its just me but I've had a rope jump of it once, and find it gives to much friction because of its large diameter and shot peened finish (which does wear of in time). I like to be able to have big bits run reliably and the older small ISC and new buck porty 3's have worked well for me. Just my opinion.

I was thinking along the same lines as wilt, maybe reconsider/revise job with a view to top - pollard if viable? It does make a nice feature.

I top trees sometimes too, but thats what I call it, I don't try and say what I did was biologically good to the tree, its just that topping. Usually as a last resort for sever decay in the base or other problem, sometimes a topped tree is better than no tree. I honestly do not care though, I have my prefered way and I do very very well out of it, gaining me a lot of recognition as a sympathetic arborist on better pay and now I can turn down jobs I don't want to do.

Its the aura of a tree pixie.

I'm not even going to bother replying to this, oh **** I already did

I know its not very Shigo to remove all the growth from a willow, but they do have a lot of stored energy and is imo a valid way of maintaining them if done appropiately.

The customer is wrong and knows jack about trees, your the professional try to sway them, but heck if they still want it shaped then do it. I know I do (I just don't post the pics of those jobs) I had it a month ago 2 jobs in the same day both Euc's I did the first my way and the customer loved it even though its not what they had in mind I just managed to convince them what I did was best. The second tree I did my way and the customer just wanted it made smaller, I tried in vain to convince them, but still ended up going back up the tree and taking more off. You win some you lose some.

I think skyhuck has a valid point, but none of us can really fairly comment on the job, as we did not see the tree before, or what its condition was in regards to the lightning damage. Not even I can stick to the 1/3 rule all the time, but I will not shape the tree, if it comes out looking a little lumpy because it was the only place to make a suitable pruning cut, then so be it. And I find with my approach I have no end of end work offered to me. And I charge a premium for taking so little out of a tree.

A friend of mine (he's not a treeworker) was cutting firewood at the place where he works, he had a log horse and a MS440 with 25" bar, to big a saw I told him, especially as he cuts nothing bigger than 16". Well he just had a new chain fitted and was loving how fast it cut through his 10" logs, he started getting a little aggresive cutting quicker and quicker, he flew through one cut and the saw banged against his leg, he thought nothing of it at first untill,, he saw the blood soaking into his tracksuit!! bottoms. On the follow through he badly hit his leg leaving a 10" ragged wound! He was extremly lucky that it was only a glancing blow! He now has my old Husky bib and brace balistic's (and is welcome to them)

I second that, the Ash is probably a self-seed and isn't realy growing in the best place and so will probably never going to reach its potential. But i'm no professional.

Driving past a reduction I did last year and thought i'd take a picture, there is also another pic of some of the other reduced lime's, all were between 25-30% reductions

I don't want you to think i'm ragging on you here, but a couple of points. If you prune to appropiate points you will not always get epicormic, in fact hardly ever. Usually in other parts of the crown due to more light now hitting it, I guess? I have'nt seen appropiate pruning techniques shown in AA books? Seen some in Shigo's book (now thats one worth reading) But am aware of BS3998 which states drop crotching down to stems of equal or no less than 1/3 diameter, so NO wispy growth points. Shapes are not important, prune the tree to its structure and it will always come out looking good and natural. Take a look at this link, especially the first part about symplast and apoplast, the trees stored energy and why its important to leave in the smaller frame work around the outside of the tree if possible and not shape it back to big wood. http://www.treedictionary.com/DICT2003/shigo/

I can confirm that

What would it matter if you still got the job done on time?

Its all cool Telhol, but I will say this there is plenty of proof that heavy pruning is bad, I have observed trees that have been pruned like your method, and trees that have been pruned by my prefered method. With my method the tree can often carry on growing at its normal rate and pattern without shoving up a ton of adventious regrowth, and is far easier to reprune in 5 years time. Like you say though its horse for courses, and we don't live in an ideal world of idealistic pruning, whatever the **** that means.