Amelanchier

I agree. I would remind people that (with the clear exception of Steve) moderators are just normal members with more work to do. Thanks for letting us know it was an issue, we do need feedback, but those grumbling about double standards should consider things in their proper context before typing.

Bumpski.

bump

On the advice of the Arborists Working Group, the AA are planning to hold a new training/CPD/social event next year aimed at the working arborist / tree surgeon. This is not a trade show (The ARB Show which will go ahead as usual 15–16 June 2012 at Cirencester) but an oppourtunity to hear talks, attend workshops, watch demos and meet like minded souls at the bar... This is in the early planning stages at the moment and they would like a bit of feedback on a few things: The event will be two days long with camping on site - which days would you prefer; Fri 6 and Sat 7 July 2012 or Sat 7 and Sun 8 July 2012? I've added a Poll to make answering this easier. What topics are of interest for talks / demos? New research? working to the new 3998? Bats? Fungi? Business issues? Highway working? Legislation? All suggestions welcomed. The intended location is in South Yorkshire but at the moment there is no confirmed location. Does anyone have the perfect site? Accessible level ground at least big enough for a marquee and overnight camping, decent trees to demo in and preferably do stuff to. If it is a success the plan is to may move to other parts of the country in future years.

Yep. Closing deadline was the 30th June...

You'll need site samples for a relevant PI. There's a lab in Norwich we've used before - I'll dig the address out if you're interested.

S'all prolly your fault then. Gliding them spores about like.

Ha ha, probably. Just struck me as an interesting correlation - the planes in the London parks are probably some of the most climbed trees in the UK. Just think of all that microtrauma caused by climbers stomping around with spore laden boots... You heard it here first.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the reason that Massaria prefers the top of limbs was because thats where arborists walked...

Tis a poorly B. pubescens sir. Having just filled in some eforms on the NBIS website it appears to be the easternmost sighting. Game on?

Just clocked these in Horsford while trying to walk off my homebrew hangover - only cam phone pictures but that shape is pretty characteristic. Will email some better ones and the grid ref off to NBIS later.

Or I could just stop being lazy and resave it in a more helpful format I guess... Template_TPO_Form031_england_en.doc

Try renaming it and deleting the x off the end of the file extension (from .docx to .doc)...

Here's the one I made for the contracting team at work. Its a bit of a mish mash but it works. I've stripped all our details and logo out - feel free to do with it what you will! Template_TPO_Form031_england_en.docx

Bad news- I'm fairly convinced that will be historical lawnmower damage. It doesn't take much to damage the bark, even a slight knock will do it - although you might have some minor infection exacerbating the situation. Good news - Its a young tree and will probably be fine. there's good callus tissue there and annual growth will seal those wounds up in no time. Mulching will help by reducing competition from the lawn for water and nutrients, allowing worms etc to decompact the soil and by reducing the likelihood that you'll accidentally bash it with the mower again! Don't bother painting it with anything - wound paints can cause more problems than they solve.

I'm there for the duration.

My comments were aimed at explaining the legislative intricacies of securing work on protected trees and not intended to inform a discussion on tree assessment. There are many scenarios in which a fell or retain strategy is perfectly valid - the company I work undertakes risk assessment within Ministry of Defence land at Thetford (largely pine plantation). The brief is fell or retain - no intermediates, with the volume of trees involved it just isn't worth sending climbers up. Might I suggest that we all bring unspoken biases to tree assessment, we each have a unconcious framework within which we make our decisions. Some view the tree as a component within a ecosystem, others as a distinct element to be prioritised. Yet others take a more anthropocentric approach. It is hard to justify one as more right (or useful) than another. This is arboricultural ontology - the nature of our knowledge. Much of the conflict I see here is talking cross purposes with false dichotomies - sometimes you mean the same thing and sometimes you can both be correct (and wrong!).

I can just see you there Tony, waving your Gerritt pom poms

The latter I suspect. Native is a confusing misnomer but intended to mean "trees that were about here without human agency since the last ice age receded " i.e., those that are indiginous to the UK (circa 11500ish years ago). So sod whatever was actually here first, the glaciers (quite literally) wiped the slate clean and that's a handy benchmark. The fact that Homo sapiens is excluded from the qualifying process over all other organisms that move plants around is indicative of the temporally limited antropocentric nature of the term. It means nothing beyond that man made benchmark. People tend to have a very short view on such things IMO. The truly "native" state of the British Isles is likely either under the sea or under a big slab of ice - something the more rabid sects of conservationists who would have us return the countryside to its original untouched glory would do well to remember! They just prefer one temporary state over another - as do we all. As an aside, I once met a rabidly bigoted old couple in my old district who after quizzing me on my heritage (seriously) were adament that they wanted to fell all the horrible (yet mature, attractive, established and thankfully protected) 'foreign' trees in their garden to replace them with nice native trees like Beech and Sweet Chestnut... Sigh. Bless their little xenophobic socks.

Absolutely. A statement to live by.

Having an opinion doesn't make it true. There are some circumstances in which it has been argued that you don't even have a right to have one (but that's another thread). Surely (don't call me Shirley right?) you must have noticed that your example doesn't support your arguement that Hama's statements are true? I presume you must be mixing the precise and specific challenge of shoring up Tony's wild accusations up with some generally nebulous anti-modernity rantage.

Let me google that for you

Indeed under the Education Act 1944, state schools are obliged to provide collective worship. So if anyone has something to complain about it's secularists.

Nonsense. Every single one of those statements is unfounded paranoid toss.

Tony I hope that doesn't make it past your editing window. Oh - surprise surprise, it did.