Marc

No offence but your obviously a large gentleman,,,,,, so that begs the question how the hell do you fit in a U900????? Great mogs though, wish the one i drive was as tidy as those, i'm the only one who actually likes driving our U900.

Here is the same avenue in its first summer.

Not sure what limes they are, they were planted not long before i started. It was just a field before, the avenue is a bit of a folly i suppose as the main drive is elsewhere, its there to create a vista to the valley beyond, give it 50 years and it'll look amazing.

Pics from up a hybrid ceder today, just clearing out split and hung up branches in the snow nothing to intresting. Had a chance though to take a picture of a Lime avenue Heritage planted a couple of years ago, plus a view over to the church with some more planting of various trees in the foreground, and one of 3 Olive trees brought over from Italy

The pics of the horese chesnut pollards you put on a while back are about the best maintained pollards of this type i've seen.

They sure manage their pollards nicely. I just don't see that happening over here anytime soon, pollarding street trees is tendered, which goes to the cheapest, so to make a profit a quick and often shoddy job is done. I did an avenue of London Planes that had been turned into high pollards they were way above the house tops and broad, 16 in total 4 climbers, 4 trees each about 1 and half hrs a tree. I strarted out with my silky the growth was a maximum of 2" being careful not to go beyond the collar so to speak, then all 3 other climbers start hacking away with their 200t's cutting into the knuckles, I then get shouted at to get a move on as there isn't the money on the job to take all day on 1 tree. Its a shame but this is the reality. By the way i was almost as quick with a silky and without being to modest i thought mine looked the best, and have grown back more evenly.

Absoloutly agree, with managed correctly being the key word! I'm also glad to hear what monkeyd is saying and i hope it happens although having done bits and pieces in London, it seems people do not like big trees taking their light, education is needed to show the importance of trees.

If you can get a Toyota landcruiser, we have one at Heritage with over a qaurter of a million miles on the clock and it still pulls the 3.5t chipper with ease (not that i'll ever be allowed to do it again after losing control and doing a full 180 whilst towing it, with both the boss's sons with me), can even pull out the unimogs at a push. It just doesn't want to die! Its the 4x4 of choice for the taliban for a reason!

I've always wondered how the worms get up in the trees, felled a horse chesnut recently with a cavity some 20ft up full of worms? I wonder if they use the srt technique?

Honey dew is worse on pollarded trees, the aphids prefer younger leaves and new shoots, where as an older tree is less likly to be severly affected by aphid. As for lapsed pollards being poorly pruned i,e lions tailed well thats down to the contractors thining only the inner 3rd of the tree rather than the outer, its quicker and easier that way. I agree that pollarding is not a bad idea if maintained, its very succesful in parts of Europe, but you have to look at it in another way, these trees are re-pollarded often by the towns people themselves or by municipal gardeners at a very low cost. Most Tree services here cannot economically price to pollard so many trees regularly to a high standard, so they are often left for long periods. Or as is the case in some areas when trees are re-polarded (especially high pollards) they are pruned below the pollard head to save time, the idea being why make lots of little cuts when you can make one big cut! We often think topping trees or heavy pollarding is bad practice, but its true if you look around you can see trees such as Beech, Horse Chesnut and Lime that have been hammered to a stick many years ago regrow complete new crowns and still be very vigorous and healthy. But it doesn't mean its a good idea just because they can in my opinion! The branch junctions have been formed from old pruning points can never be as strong as a natural union, and to re-pollard them is never as effective the second time round i've seen many fail. I reckon the best and most cost effective thing to do is re-plant with something more suitable rather than be stuck with **** trees that are a money drain in maintenance for councils.

One of the things i love about setting a srt line is the fact you don't always have to isolate a limb (unlike setting a footlocking line), my throw lining is just o.k so this helps a lot. Also if you use a gri gri or similar it means you will be able to retrieve the srt gear from the ground anyway, but you also have the added bonus of being able to perform a rescue if the climber injures himself on the way up. And with most SRT system from what i know decending quickly if you hurt yourself is not an option, I use the RADS system so i can ascend and decend which makes doing a little work on the way up a safer option. Also an SRT system will put double your weight on the anchor point unlike our normal climbing systems or footlocking, thats why i some times like my rope to go through 2 limbs and not isolate one.

I'd say go for epping forest its big enough to find a spot out of site i'd guess, besides i've climbed some trees in public places most people don't bat an eyelid neither do the local police, they have other things to do.

Nice vid, looked like a real smooth operation and professional operation. Can't believe that the thread has turned into a discussion about thumbs though jeez.

What you say is true, but seriously mate if you could turn back time, would you of choosen a different path....... Or maybe i should put it another way! do you really feel your time was wasted in arb? Even if you choose another career path, that may of not worked out and you may of not had so much fun and variety.

i hope it stays that way, big mature trees can work in the urban enviroment, without to much over zealous pruning. Unfortunatly I think things are changing.

funny thing with cars is when you search on the internet or ask opinions its always the negatives that stand out, people always complain on forum or post about poor reliabilty and major faults on any website. Yet you never get to hear from all those satisfied drivers!. In the end owning a car can be a lottery.

Aye its not all about flashy logo's and corporate wear, old skool skillz and battered trucks all the way. Mr Ringrose is allright in my books tho hence me adding his link. I'm sure something is probably not right in this photo of you!

No more than an hour, how big is your tree? I've work on a couple of small/medium Ginko with badly split unions that have cables in this seems to work well with the Ginko able to compartmentalise the drill'd through bolt, unlike some other trees. So if your familiar with steel bracing it may be an option.

Its always the way, I prefer to start no matter how bleak and see if the weather improves, as to go home then go back is a pain, usually once i'm settled in i don't want to go out again. Moving on to second cup,,,,

I'm up for it, could bring a few others to if i'm not busy.

I'm looking out my window from my warm living room and all i see is the perfect working weather. I can't wait for tomorrow when i get back to it, i just hope the cold snap lasts a bit longer so i get to enjoy it. But since i'm here i'll go warm the coffee machine up.

No offence mate, but thats a good case in point, from how you describe what happened you put yourself in a bad situation and got bite hard! I once cut close to my feet and legs ended up taking a very small nick out of the leather on my boots, lesson learned glad it wasn't a harsh one! No ppe or legislation or banning top handle saws will prevent these accidents, only our actions, do you get where i'm coming from? As a climber i work with keeps telling me its his 12 layers of skill that protects him, and i believe it!

cool think of the extra reach you'd get on those awkard prunes!

I'm not saying its a bad idea to protect yourself or wear type c all the time, its the attitude of we should better protect the workers as they probably won't use the saw properly. I for one can not fathom how you'd even get in a situation where you may cut the back of your leg. I just feel its and incredibly lazy way of reducing accidents, more time and effort should be spent on teaching good positioning and work practices this would reduce the amount of accidents, rather than just handing out better protection. Don't protect from stupidty, eliminate it! I'm probably going to end up doing something really stupid now i've said this:bored:

I just don't see the need for a lighter more comfortable ppe jacket? Of topic a little, my mate who used to run his own small tree service now works for network rail. He tells me that they will all soon need to where type C trousers at all times because someone cut themselves in the back of the leg. If this is true I hate this kind of knee jerk over reaction to an accident, surely the question should be asked how did he get himself in a position where he cut the back of his leg on the ground? One of the things i found most shocking is they send him out on his own to do smaller climbing jobs mostly dismantling and expect him to work with crew he's never worked with before, he is not happy about this as most can't tie a knot let alone use a prta wrap effectivly, this expose's himself and those he works with to more risk of accident than ppe. Safety comes from good practice and teamwork, it takes a long time to get very skilled at this job and know just how to carry out daily task without exposing yourself to the highly varible risks not just for climbers but groundcrew to!! PPE thats just there as a back up no for PROTECTION