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.

14 pages to learn young people generally climb faster than older people, but older people can still achieve with the right frame of mind.

Case study. ======================================================== Asplen stumbles across myhammer website. For those who do not know it is a site very much like ebay but in reverse, clients place jobs they want doing on the site and then traders underbid each other until the "auction/tender" ends. Asplen finds a job described as "60ft willow needs reducing, all waste taking away". There is a picture included in the picture, it is a lapsed pollard of a crack willow and it is indeed 60ft+. Asplen "asks a question" RE access, how far to the road, are there any valuables under the tree such as green houses as these things need to be known before bidding on a job. Asplen receives no response to the question and AAACarpetman wins the auction for £100. Looking through AAACarpetmans auction history on the site he is as one might suspect; a carpet fitter. ======================================================== The pay is low because entirely unskilled people will accept pay for work that is wholly unsustainable for a professional outfit. To the lay person tree works is not a skilled arboricultural/biomechanical discipline and is merely an extension of gardening.

The way I see it... If we're talking about rocket scientists, lawyers etc I would class that as "professional". That's not to say arborists are not professional at what they do; but in my opinion an arborist is or ought to be a skilled tradesman and i'll illustrate why. If you had a master craftsman stone carver, you can rely on him to not **** the job up, do it on time and on budget and manage his own team of apprentices/assistants and the work quality second to none. I think everyone would agree this man is a skilled tradesman. If you're an arborist that has actually bothered to learn arboriculture in the wider context [Fungal/ecological relationships, species identification and information that can be disseminated from it i.e. soil types and condition - learning plant pathology etc] then you fall under all the same like for like qualities as a master craftsman in my view. If you own a harness and a chainsaw and go to work as such, i don't see how it is not semi-skilled tradesman level. That is comparable to a painter/decorator - dry stone wall maker - gardener. The thing that I find gets people riled up about arboriculture is that it is hazardous work whereas other similar jobs requiring similar competence can't really kill you. Whilst it is a valid point it doesn't mean the operator is any more or less skilled than before, just that you're in a hazardous field of work...

The end of official slavery.

Enteridium lycoperdon. I cannot see an evolutionary strategy in being sheen white and that size if you're full of proteinilicious beasts myself.

Actually doing a degree isn't about a piece of paper, it demonstrates to prospective employers that you can work to deadlines and take the initiative in finding solutions to problems because the lecturers aren't there to hold your hand at all [speaking as a final year BSc Hons undergrad at Myerscough]. I'm perplexed by your lack of experience on excel/report writing/cad. If you have a PC and you have an internet connection then all you have to do is type "CAD tutorials" into youtube etc. It's what everyone else is doing, if you cannot write reports or work to deadlines then what use is there in asking for consultancy positions? It just doesn't figure. I hope you don't take this as a personal attack because it is not intended as such; but my advice is to get your arse into gear, start using excel for your expenses, start using the infinite amount of resources out there online to learn how to CAD and just get on with your assignments. Everyone's been there where they got caught short, couldn't be bothered to do a piece of work or whatever - i actually failed a part of one of my assignments recently because I found it tedious and boring; I can cook up any number of reasons why I failed to rationalise it to myself but the key point is that whilst there are plenty of dumb people doing degrees out there they "wing it" because they put the work in. Whether you are bright or not is irrelevant, if you don't work at it it just won't happen, degrees have fallen by the wayside and the common view of them may well be that it's just a bit of paper but it doesn't mean that piece of paper is just going to magically land on your plate because you want it to.

Could this be extended throughout the North West perhaps to become an over arching co-operative do you think? I have neither the means or the time to contribute [+ I live just outside the 25 mile catchment] just now but it is a fine principle. I feel a lot of time, money and tears is lost in Arb due to this "suspicion" of which you speak. The whole industry would benefit from behaving collectively like a set of skilled craftspeople/consultants on every side of arb life.

In what way exactly is the vocabularly of a whale more complex than humans?

There isn't a huge amount of info out there, I believe it is supposed to be fairly beneign but I have seen many mature Ash with heavy fruiting of the species. One or two patches coming directly out of a buttress had a fist sized decay pocket underneath it.

Some want it gone because it looks unsightly, some want it retained because it looks good. The position you take is opinionated and subjective but the ecological value it has whether it lives or dies is undisputable; thus it should be retained if possible. It pains me that we just go around having to fell things for some perverse sense of "Tidiness" related to tree work. We unecessarily remove/fell/destroy hundreds of trees in my LA area, it is to fell or not to fell. Little goes into thinking about any kind of long term management or other considerations and it is a relief to find this kind of sensible open mindedness about our arboricultural assets instead of "no that tree has had it, dismantle fell and stump grind delete delete delete"...