Rock Monkey

Hi All I'm after a bit of advice on Indian Bean Trees. I have a customer, a school, who have 2 fantastic mature Bean Trees in the school grounds. (I don't have any photos at the moment but will try and get some). Both trees must be 25ft tall and twice as wide and provide a great natural canopy for the children in the playground. They seem in great health, except from quite a bit of deadwood in the lower inner canopy, which you can understand. The caretaker of the school is constantly panicking that they are going to shed their limbs onto the kids and keeps taking about having them reduced. I have been resisting this and have told him not to worry and that maybe a clean out of the deadwood would be the best option. I guess what I'm looking for is peace of mind that I have given the correct advice. I know that the wood can be brittle but is it likely that they can shed limbs when they reach maturity? Has anyone got any experience of maintaining mature Bean trees? Just to be clear, everyone concerned is very attached to the trees so any pruning would only be done if there was any real danger. Thanks

I had a close call with my right eye a year or so ago - didn't have my visor down! Ended up piercing my eye dead centre and had it glued up - out of action for month or so. if it hadn't been dead centre they would have stitched it - urgh! Anyways, I wear contacts and they reckon the lens helped slow down the offending piece of tree and saved my sight! The strangest part of it all being that the lens was undamaged!????!! I was famous in my local eye A&E dept for a while! Full recovery in the end thank god. I've yet to find anything that keeps out all sawdust, the finer stuff always gets through somehow! I find wearing contacts actually helps with the discomfort as the dust doesn't get behind the lens and onto your eye. Its when I take them out at the end of the day that I realise my eyes are full of crap! Staying upwind is the best advice!

Brilliant! Just the response I was looking for, thanks all!

Hi All Thinking of heading to Croft Castle in Herefordshire tomorrow, have heard they have some great veteran trees. Anyone been? Worth a trip? Cheers Simon

I've got a 5t winch on my landy which gets used for the odd stump and then one of the small 12v, 1t winches on my chipper. Used that one yesterday to winch the chipper through some woods to site.

Hi David i have one other photo, wasn't sure if this was the same fungi or different - it was found much higher up the tree. Just having a read up on Flammulina velutipes - if it was that then what a shame I missed a chance to eat some!

Hi All Can anybody confirm what fungi this is? Was on a Chestnut that was removed a few weeks back which had been on a steady decline last few years. Is it honey fungus? Cheers

Cheers Ben

Hi all I have a client in notts who is looking for someone with an airspade to carry out some work. They require the roots of a mature Lime tree to be exposed so that they can get some footings in for a planned extension. If anyone is interested please can you PM me. Thanks Simon

Still smiling about rugby on fri night!

50g of what?! 😁

So I'm thinking of trying out a pinto as my main anchor point. At the moment I climb on a zigzag using a cambium saver. I'm not to fussed about retrieval from the ground for the moment so I'm not considering a pulley saver for the time being. With that in mind I was thinking of using a length of 10mm rope, tied as you would a prussic loop with the pulley (+ spacer) threaded on and then just crows footing this round my chosen point. Can anyone see any problems with this? Or any better options? Trying to keep costs at a min for now until I know I like using the pulley. Cheers

Non bio, normal cycle - loose. Sorted.

You should check out his Twitter feed, his responses to people is hilarious!!

I'd like to read that if you can. Of course they aren't 100% safe - all krabs can open in a certain situation - 3 way/screw gate/snapgate.....etc. what I'm saying is that if the chances were very high we wouldn't be using them, we would have all moved to 4 way (prob not 100% either!)

Average height of telephone pole is 9m I think

Well there's always exceptions to the rule. But if they were prone to opening frequently would we all put our life on the end of them? I must say I was surprised to be told I can use my old krabs but then I trust my LOLER inspector is better informed than me....

Depends on your LOLER inspector then! I know I'd rather have an old 3 way krab whose gate stuck 1 in 10 times than a snap gate though. At the end of the day, you attach it to harness at beginning of climb and there it stays until you take it off. I've never heard of a 3 way openning by being brushed against something once its closed, surely thats why we use them?

I asked this same question at my last LOLER inspection and was told it was fine to use the old karabniners that I no longer climb on (or had failed LOLER) for attaching my saw - providing they were clearly marked as not for climbing on. The bungee strop came under LOLER but the attachement point not..... Of course this only applied if the gate locked!

+1 on the above. Never had to make a claim though, hopefully won't have to either!

I think I recall something about a % of the total loop size to pass the loler regs....

I'll do it for the wood......

I always try my best to get it shifted. But if I can't then I always take plenty of pics with the car and the tree before carrying out work and then the same pics with tree cut. You never know if they will try and claim you did the damage that they did in sainsburys car park....

I left mine soaking in the bath. The wife came home and screamed! She thought we had plumbing issues - it looked like the creature in the black lagoon!