daltontrees

It keeps your harness on when you've got a 660 clipped to it...

I'd recommend the Ginkgo. You can actually feel it working at the breakfast table after you take it. If youyr ads are cold you either need to stop them getting cold (gloves, which I don't like when climbing), tolerate the cold (not an option with vibrating machinery), reheat your hands from the outside (handwarmers, tea, certain 'exercises'), increase your overall temperature by vigorous exercise or heat your hands from the inside. When up a tree the last one is the only one for me. You need vasodilation. There are vasodilators (things that open up the capillaries in yor extremities) but I think you need a prescription. But ginkgo is a very effective natural vasodilator. And (you have to try it to believe it) it helps you think too because it improves blood flow to the brain.

I am just speculating but it sounds like it is a noun used as a verb rather than the other way around. It may therefore just be an old word for stool, which is basically the bit of the original stem from which coppice stems are allowed to grow.

Do Palm Tree Roots Grow As Big As the Palm Tree? | Home Guides | SF Gate

They're not woody. And they don't branch. So they're technically not trees.

The first ones, no. The second ones are too far gone to indentify.

Feel free to blow our minds about why you disagree with this then. Dead Wood | Trees for Life or this Forestry Commission - PDF Document - lifeinthedeadwood.pdf or this The RSPB: Advice: Dead wood for wildlife or this http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEQQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.english-heritage.org.uk%2Fpublications%2Flan-dead-wood%2Flan-deadwood.pdf&ei=EFR7VM6qJMjtaIWjgNAN&usg=AFQjCNEwKnNsYZdfVg65Mfe36aE_bSCx4g&bvm=bv.80642063,d.d2s etc. All free, and found on Google in, let me see, 0.45 seconds. 100 words or less, mind. Thank goodness for people like DH who are dedicated, experienced and enlightened and informed enough to remind us often that retaining deadwood is at least worth considering.

Just saw 15 Norways in a row looking just like that yesterday in East Kilbride. And 1 in Wales today.

I surrender, I don't know what I am talking about.

I haven't made any assumption, I have just observed. The trees are dying one by one in sequence and when one gets felled by the Council I check and sure enough there are A.m rhizomorphs. The trees are dying standing, cambium seemingly killed ina 2 year period. Coincidence?

I sent the transfer doc to Swansea, so it's officially his. Reg No. is V158 HVK.

Noted. I still carry in my head the extreme zero tolerance treatments suggested by Strouts in "Diagnosis of ill health in tree". I am watching in my local park the trees near a recent A.m victim, the nearest one has extensive dieback and won't recover. The next one has generally declining vigour and the third has isolated dieback or poor vigour. Beyond that the trees are OK. Soil conditions poor (grass, compaction, waterlogging, leaves cleared). An inevitable slow-motion domino effect.

Yes, my signs were nicked. Also I sold this truck (definitely the same one) 2 months ago and I heve the seller's name and address. Will pm the OP. Truck used to say Dalton Tree Solutions, he promised to remove the lettering.

Great thread. I'm in the 'no doubt' camp. Pruning rejuvenates but that's all very well on a healthy tree. But the net removal of a large amount of ripe buds will set the tree back considerably. In spring when it flushes it may not have enough transpiration suction for proper vascular function, and needs to expend its reserves on redressing the root/shoot balance, or roots will die. It may bounce back but at quite a cost. Meantime the fungus marches on. There is room for an argument that the removal of canopy removes the energy sourve of a pathogen and slows its development. But if the pathogen is feeding on cellulose and/or lignin, it won't be slowed at all. Net gain for pathogen. Could tip the balance. Worth a go in a 'nothing to lose' scenario. David, to what extent do you consider whether the early removal (stump and all) of Armillaria victims as food sources for further spreading to adjacent stock? This is not a loaded question and I don't think there is a right answer, I am just curious about your perspective on what is for me an age-old dilemma.

Exactly! Nature knows nothing of categories. Species evolve, niches are created, other species mutate and the successful mutants occupy the niche and thrive, becoming a new species. Definition boundaries mean nothing. Even the distinction between fungi and bacteria is pretty fuzzy. The boundary between fungi and the many many almost-fungi-but-can't-be-categorised stuff is completely arbitrary. Hardcore mycologists even turn their noses up at oomycota (e.g Phytopthora) because they have cellulose coats rather than chitin. More schisms than a church! When I started learning about trees I wanted it to be simple and easily categorised but now that I have broken the back of it I crave exceptions to the rules and the ordinary becomes a little boring. You might become a closet myco yet. I feel myself being sucked in to the dark side. But like trees and fungi, I would settle for a symbiosis.

If it is, it's a national champion at that size. Only ever recorded to 20 metres. Might just be a scabby Sitka or Norway. Out of plantations they go a bit freeform, and Norway can hang like that while producing upward tips.

Ah well, after discounting sapwood intact, sapwood exposed and heartwood as strategies, actively pathogenic is the only one left for H.a even if it's not strictly true. You'll go crazy or bust trying to find the answer...

Fresh s.211 notification and wait for 6 weeks. If Council does f.a. you are immune from prosecution.

I am halfway through "Modern Mycology", so I can guess at half an answer. Fungi are limited in the complexity of chemicals they can produce to invade hosts. The limitation seems to be the passage of the chemicals through the cell wall of the fungla hypha. I culdn't prove it, but I think that suberized barriers (cork!) in bark is almost impenetrable by all but the most host-specific pathogenic fungi. What seems more likely is that H.a invades through unsuberized young root hairs or the smallest breaches in bark. If you were breaking into a house, you wouldn't go through the wall, you,d try all the windows and doors first. That kind of thing. Requiring a glasss-cutter rather than a jack hammer. Fungi penetrate by secreting enzymes at the hyphal growth tip. The normally-insoluble cellulose can be defeated in this way. One typical group of enzymes I have read of are called glucoamylases. I thought these only acted to break down starches into sugars, but maybe they can do the same on cellulose. Until someone comes along who knows what they are talking about, I'd say 'enzymes' and I'd also think windows, not walls. With H.a being known for cambium killing, an infection route under rather than through the bark seems likely, so starting at tiny roots before they get suberized, or by root grafts where no dense wall exists between touching trees. If anyone can expand in this I'd be most interested.

I agree, ignorance can never be a defence. But what I am really saying is that I think the Act is intended to deter the person who owns the tree. When a contractor cuts down a tree, the offence that has really been committed is that the tree's owner has caused it to be cut down. The offender is the tres owner, not teh contractor. Sure, it's always gong to be easier to misinterpret the Act and puruse the easy target of the contractor covered in sawdust with a load of chip in his truck. But that CANNOT be the intention of the law. The amenity of an area will only be protected by deterring the tree's owner from doing what is wrong. Yeah, I reckon I'd take a defense on that basis all the way. If Council Tree Officers want to try and turn contractors into tree police, they should give them part of trheir budget to do so instead of chickening out from pursuing the real culprit i.e. person who made the decision to break the law. None of this applies, of course, when a contractor as a business service undertakes to do the checks for a tree owner. That is a separate matter.

Did anybody respond to this consultation? It closed on Friday. And if not, was it so perfect that no resposnes were needed? Or was it thought unnecessary, or was it too much like hard work to try and understand it?

Bet the client and the Council were quite relieved that someone took the rap for their lies and incompetence. Better no caution than a caution. Oh well, I suppose we all have different priorities...

What's that music, Tim?

I'm going to answer this in a few chunks, probbaly most people will find this boring but I have done the research so I may as well share it here. SCOTLAND V ENGLAND The offence in England is in the current Regulations, here abridged to "no person shall cut down .... any tree to which [a TPO] relates, or shall cause or permit the [cutting down of] such a tree, except with the written consent of the authority" In Scotland it's in the primary legislation and the equivalent is - "If any person, in contravention of a [TPO] cuts down a tree, ... he shall be guilty of an offence." As I will explain below, I don't think that this means in Scotland that you are off the hook if you get someone else to cut your tree down. THE POOLE CASE I have only seen the appeal judgement. The appeal related only to the person who told the tree surgeon to do it. The appeal related only to the applicability of the Proceeds of Crime legislation. The original decision was in Bournemouth Crown Court. I have not seen that judgement. Mr Davey's fine was £150k, including value added to his house by improved views. In the case, it is at least clear that the tree was not even on Mr Davey's land, and he knew it. He got his neighbour's TPO'd tree cut down. There is nothing in the judgement to say that the tree surgeon's relatively paltry fine of £2k was for breach of TPO. It could have been for proceeds of crimes including criminal damage and trespass. So, I don't think this judgement in itself is proof of the ability of COuncils to fine contractors. Even if the Crown Court had done that, it was not appealed and could have been a flawed decision. MAGISTRATES COURTS ACT I suppose smaller prosecutions than the Poole case are handled by the MAgistrates Courts. Section 44 of the Magistrates' Court Act 1980 provides that any person who 'aids, abets, counsels or procures the commission by another person of a summary offence' is guilty of the like offence. That seems to open the way for contractors to be fined too. THE CONTRACTOR'S POSITION GENERALLY However, aiding or abetting is only punishable when the aider or abetter knows that it is a crime he is aiding or abetting. If a contractor innocently helps bring about a crime or asks if the customer has checked for restrictions and is told yes, it is nothing short of ridiculous for the law to prosecute him. What benefit would arise? Well, the only one I could think of would be scaring the industry into becoming tree police for the Council. That is clearly clearly not the law's intention. The English Act is more explicit about whether a tree is merely cut down or is caused ot permittedto be. But fundamentally this cannot change the basic point. Trees don't move. They go with the land and so the resonsibility for them and for adhering to laws relating to them (like Occupiers Liability Act) rests with the occupier (usually but not always the owner). The offence of cutting down applies to when an occupier does it himself, and to close a potential loophole you can't wriggle out of it because you got someone else to do it, or turned a blind eye while it was done. In Scotland we don't even see it as a loophole and don't have to spell it out, that is why our wording is simpler. If a contractor cuts the tree down and has been appointed to do so by the customer, the customer is very very obviously causing the the to be cut down. Unless the contractor knowingly aids or abets this (i.e. knows it is wrong but does it anyway), he is blameless. THIS AND SIMILAR CASES I think the OP is blameless. If a prosecution went ahead, it would be his word againstthe customer's. And if a court couldn't decide who was tellign the truth, the default position in my mind is that the occuier is guilty. If the ofccupier disagrees with the judgement, he can sue the contractor on the balance of probabilites principle. Me? I'd say nothing to nobody. I checked, the occupier said he knew of the TPO and that it was OK. Note in my diary to that effect. Invoice and payment on file. QED. If prosecuted or offered a caution I'd fight it till I was penniless, and then I'd keep on fighting. Who'd want to accept living in such an unfair society if something could be done about it to set the record straight for every Council in the land. Councils get these things wrong, all too frequently. Well, England anyway. Till I move there, which is not anytime soon, I am satisfied that my view on how the law would be interpreted if push came to shove is about right.

I don't quite understand. There is no right of appeal against the making of a TPO.