daltontrees

Already done it following your request on UKTC (or at least I think I did). Is it the same questionnaire? If not, I'll do it again.

I think you missed my point, doing it could help you get the job.

This is correct, Councils can try and get youy to use the TPO form and can even mistakenly believe that you have to, but they do get it wrong and the only thing that matters is what the Act and Regulations say. I wold also sya that I have in teh past put in notification for jobs before I win them. It starts the 6 week notification period running, but it aso makes you stand out as the most professional and helpful. The notification is for the tree not for the copntractor, so it doesn't matter who puts it in.

Deefinitely not Hamamelis. Cornus mas looking good.

The BS is not clear about a lot of things but it does say you can overlook minor defects. But it doesn't say you can ignore incurable active pathogens that re known to cause or contribute to premature demise of a tree. Would it be misleading to call it an A2? Almost certainly. Would it be misleading to call it a B2? Probably not. I call it the cross-examination test, and I make my decisions accordingly. Does the category feel right? Are the nearest alternative catgories any better? Would you recommend that a development with a design life of 40+ years be designed around it so that it can be enjoyed for that design life? If you were in the stand at a public inquiry, being cross-examined by some smart-ass, weasly razor-sharp QC whose job it is to destroy your self-confidence and your evidence, could you look him square in the eyes and say 'in my professional judgement, on all the available evidence, that is the most appropriate category? If you could, you've got it right. Having just done a big survey where there is huge hostility to a statutory scheme and where absolutely any of the trees surveyed could become a pawn in a very high-stakes game (and a few of the trees will be), I rehearsed this test for almost every tree before hitting the 'OK' button and moving on. I hope this helps you decide. I'd say it sounds like a B2. The stable hollowing of oak over long periods is well known, but in my experience more with Inonotus and Fistulina, whereas some of the Ganoderma species can destabilise quite quickly and the wind does the rest.

Not a lot of clear detail there to go on. In the past I have seen worrying white stuff in cracks in Beech only to realise that it was Adelgid or Cryptococcus. I saw something similar on a really old Beech on Tuesday, and my report is likely to note that it was unidentifiable but that there were no other signs such as hollowing, necrosis or propagation of splits to suggest that from a risk or tree helath management perspective, nothing more need be done just now.

I have the excellent National Audubon Society Field Guide. Makes me want to go to north america for a tree-spotting holiday. Soooo sad...

Wild guess... Hamamelis japonica? Your flowers are very blurred.

There was always going to be a slightly ugly Arbtalk thread about the general election. I hope this is the one, so that I can avoid it and the rest of Arbtalk is safe to look at. Don't you guys have trees to look at? Rhetorical question, I probably won't be looking at this thread again so I wouldn't see the answer.

I think that for the commoner species this is possible. Having formally surveyed about 50,000 trees I find it is possible to identify and recognise abnrmalities in all the native specis by now and only to have to refer to the guidebooks for varieties, hybrids and rarere non-natives.

I have it and like it but it is outdated (taxonomically) and the illustrations are poor compared to subsequentn editions by Johnston and Moore or the photo-based Phillips publications.

Collins Tree Guide (Hardcover) 0007139543 | eBay You'll never need another in the field, but it's good to have a few others in the office for leisurely idents of rare species. Get the hardback, it's worth it in the long run. Or if you get paperback, get a case for it. Mine has taken a pounding in the survey bag for a few years but is in amazingly good condition. The day it falls apart I'm going to buy 2 more copies in case it goes out of print.

10 out of 10 for careful dismantle, not so many out of 10 for cutting out the only good strap of wood on the compression side to take the bollard for shock loading?

Acht, you're right it's not the Polish thread its the door-knocker-transit-mob one. Same message though, poor b++++tree seen more trauma than 400 million years of evolution has equipped it to survive. These delicate reductions are hard to get right. Really unless you re-distribute the hormone (auxin) production in a near-prefect way it can all go pear/banana/coffin shaped. Just as art imitates life and bad art is bad, arboriculture imitates nature and bad arb is bad...

Not the best photo? papparazzi could have done a better job on a bikinied B list Royal from 400 yards! Seriously, identification of fungi is dependent on so much more than what it looks like. What it's on helps, but the arty shots aren't as informative as the ones of the pore surface or the top surface or as Sloth says a wedge of the flesh.

Belated welcome to Arbtalk, ARP. That's a neat pruning job and although I am frimly in the 'pruning is wounding' camp and would have said why harm this tree again after the Polish savaging it got, if your ethics and your workmanship are genuine I hope you go from strength to strength and let the occasional drivel of Arbtalk whistle past you, useful as a test of strength but no basis for over-riding sound instinct and judgement.

OK, save the punchline! For now I am thinking 20 + or - 10 for soft rot, 25 + or - 5 for 'functional'.

David, for comparison what amplitude would you expect for completely sound Lime?

Depends on the age of the tree. What is the diameter of the limb that you want to kill? And the one you want to retain?

I think I see how to do this with a long endless rope sling. Tie a midline knot (a moth would do - see Arbtalk's splendid knot guide) in the middle of the sling (using both sides of the sling). This creates one footloop (the one we can't see in the photo). Then pass one end loop of the sling round the back of the stem and one round the front, put one loop through the other to make the bit we can see. Et voila! Better would be a adjustable length sling for different diameters of stem. I think I see how to do this too if anyone's interested.

Sound logic there, but just to be clear the OP shouldn't assume that a TPO proposed in a CA but refused by committee removes the CA status. It doesn't. And so a s211 notice is needed, but should be a formality since the only option open for the LA to resist it is a TPO. I can't see any TO trying that twice. If I was the LA I wouldn't quite say the trees are not protected but that in this case no further notification is required.

I suppose I would just have to disagree with that on intuition. I agree that many metals are well tempered by heat, but what is being done here is to expand the metal to take a shaft then cool it around the shaft, so the metal is being cooled rapidly while under tension and as it cools that tension increases rapidly. I feel that microfractures are inevitable in this situation. They might not cause brakage immediately but they will not repair themselves even with subsequent heatings and will only ever get bigger and lnger. One day they might cause the wedge to shatter. After all, the things get punded with a sledge hammer. Any weakness will propagate. Oh, who knows, it might take years and your wedge might fall in the river long before it breaks.

Or maybe see if Le Creuset do high lift wedges? If they do, toss them hot onto the kitchen table, you'll get a way with it.

Wood chars at around 150 deg C, at a rate of about 1mm per hour, and ignites at just over 200 deg C. Aluminium expnds at about 0.025% per degree. So heating a wedge to 100 deg C should increase the circumference of the hole by about 2.5%. Aluminium melts at about 600 deg C. I would have thought that putting a wedge in a pan of hot water and bringing it to the boil for a couple of minutes then driving the wooden shaft in and letting it cool in air would produce a fantastically snug fit but could never char the wood or damage the metallurgical structure of the wedge. This might work too with the plastic shafts, whereas heating the wedge in fire will almost certainly melt a plastic shaft.

Sorry, typo by me. I have the book, I fell asleep reading it. Tried again last night too, it hit the floor with a thump just as I was getting to the interesting (...) bit. Maybe I will have a look during the day.