Asplen

Your "technical" spiel as it were might have been funny if it weren't for the fact that despite whatever barb was taken from my post - the ultimate intention of it was to get more people reading yours. Your "flow" is funny though. It's that of a failing college student regurgitating year one syllabus onto forums alongside impractical, almost theological tree rhetoric in the delusional belief that this will equate to you being a consultant. You were right before though Hama, letters after your name aren't everything, but being able to hand documents in on time and spell "indicative" would be a start. [insert arch-type smiley here of choice]. Sorry for the previous swear word mods.

You know... Rather than quoting an entire post [entire being the key word here], you can just respond to it so everyone else is spared tapping down on the keyboard or wheeling their mouse to read the same **** twice. The image came from google images "Tree" as far as I care .

I'm not convinced that any of the emerging legislatures are going to create that distinction in the majority of folk's minds that Arb is not merely an extension of gardening and that expectations of cost and price are usually wrong. IOW: "It's still just a tree! - who cares?". I think; if anything, that more will slide towards ecologists as it is their profession to understand ecology [No **** right?]. Whilst Hama et al [myself included once upon a time] can clamour to the "inclusive-and-all-embracing-wonderful-aspects-of-arb-in-all-its conservation/mycology/ecology/habitat" bubble, arborists are still hoisting ropes and saws up trees and will be seen as such. As a current BSc Hons undergrad in Arb with a few years experience [not many but qualitative] there seems to be three main demographics in the industry [+ the "I wanna chainsaw!" crowd]. 1. The "rough and ready" keen to work arborist, who has weathered it thus far and will continue to do so. 2. The emerging tree consultancy business [though still embedded in insurance and or planning/court] 3. The people doing the practical work already and who are actually academically interested in tree/mycological biology etc but have nowhere to put it. 4. The many gormless idiots who "can't wait" to get their "chainsaw license" from where on in it will start raining naked women aged 18-30 and cash bundles will arrive on silver platters. In terms of a changing industry I think that these demographs will respectively. 1. Graft as they always have and continue to earn as they always have. 2. Push papers around same as any other paper pusher. 3. Possibly start seeing some extra niches emerging in terms on conservation management or bat reports etc but the scope will be limited. 4. Colleges\universities will continue to monetise the idea of Arboriculture to people, and do well for themselves at that. Large companies get cheap labour for ever. EDIT:>> Sorry it was so wordy/sprawling.

They never do help you with the placements, it's part of the con.

Mychorrizal associations aren't all that. Whilst it is a symbiotic relationship between them; when the going gets rough [tree decline] a lot of mychorrizae will begin digesting their host.

Ah thanks for clearing that up for me.

The new photos look infinitely better imo. I still think it ought to be arboricultural and landscape planning. If you removed the "and landscape" it would just be "arboricultre planning vs arboricultural planning". Either way it looks good bud - are you going to include a page about the staff?

If there is no evidence of it healing on it's own 2 years afterwards and there are multiple collars on the stem I really wouldn't bother with trying to graft across the cambium. Endophytic fungi are probably already starting their decay strategy.

Which authority Skyhuck?

If a tree is in the process of being protected, there is an appeals process. If the appeal doesn't sit right you can appeal to the inspectorate. If an application to fell a protected tree on safety grounds is refused [and it is important that it is refused rather than the application discarded because there was no information in it] then the council assume liability for the tree. Even then if it is refused there is a comprehensive appeals process. I've worked as a contractor and a TO and there are plenty of useless and great examples of both - generalising doesn't work and neither does segregating the industry into "us" and "them".

So basically; it's allowable if it isn't fraud?

Since the Birmingham Ash incident all LA have to move to a proactive, defend-able tree management system. The operative word being defend-able, some fairly shite systems are defend-able.

The text to the right of the image ought to be on the left imo or at least tried on the left if you haven't already; we read top to bottom, left to right and the current layout feels a little less natural than it should do to me. Also Arboriculture and landscape planning should be "Arboricultural & landscape planning". There are capitalisation issues on your "services" page... In addition to that "10 years' experience" shouldn't have the apostrophe. I stopped reading after that. The images smack too much of generic/faceless corporate istockphoto stuff and there are no staff pictures or introductions to them. Hope that helps. EDIT:> I felt bad so I went through the site again, there is white text on grey on your resources page and that's a bad design judgement, the previous clients ought to have been clickable links to find out who they are as well, rather than a shoehorned in image!

Serious question... Could you claim massages\gym membership as a practical cost effective method to reduce likelihood of chronic injuries from work? Of course the instant answer would be to "adopt best working positions etc" but I'll throw it out there anyway.

A tree consultant should have the knowledge and the skills to extract a soil sample, perform a plasticity index analysis and draw a meaningful conclusion from it. What consultants can and should be able to do is label soils as likely to shrink, or not. The question of "damage" to structures is the remit of a structural engineer, not arborists/arboriculturalists.