daltontrees

I think we're getting mixed up in what's meant by reference. If you want to know what the BS says about something for a one-off reason, go tot eh library. Look at the screen. Write it down if you want. That is what libraries are for, reference. No breach of copyright. But if you copy it and take it home, then that's breach of copyright. I use the Glasgow library now and again. I can look at screeds of stuff, pick out and note down the one or two sentences that I need and go home. I don't need to buy a whole document for 2 sentences. If there's an illustration I need the library will copy it for me. I don't eed or want whole documents cluttering my shelves and my hard drive unless I am gouing to be using them frequently. And if I am using them frequently they will be earning me money so I don't mind buying them. Didn't one of the consultancies down south produce a free or much cheaper abridged version of te BS? Or am I imagining that? BY the way, can anyone think of a better way for BS to finance its functions? I have long wondered about this but can't think of a solution.

It has now been withdrawn.

The business section of public libraries may have the fcility to print off the odd page here nad there. For example, Glasgow City has a free-to-view account for the British Standards and will allow a small % of any document to be printed off (10p a copy) there. So you could legitimately nab the categories table, for example.

Roll it up and pop an elastic band round it.

It's very strictly copyright and I hope for your sake an the sake of anyone that is going to give you a pdf copy they do so in private.

I prefer the term 'prematurely cynical'.

Yeah, so much for NJUG!

Beech, about 4 tonnes, must have been about 24m tall before being dismantled on the ground. I think the root spread under the road must have been pretty limited by the tarmac, but by the time the ducting operations severed the only roots, there was zero tensile support on that side, which was the windward side. Fortunately it landed in a field.

Pretty much bang-on. Ducting that severed the roots has been pulled out of the ground. You can see the groove in the rootplate where the duct had been. The forlorn cone is quite comical. Here's another picture.

Saw this recently on the edge of a 60mph public road, as the caption says it tells a story. I have the benefit of seeing it in 3 dimensions and a good close-up look and poke, but anyone want to speculate just for interest?

Nice one. Can't help adding Prunella scales, an English actress best known for her role as Basil Fawlty's wife Sybil in the British comedy Fawlty Towers.

|For what it's worth (not very much, probably) I thought is was an arrested Phellinus pomaceus.

The thing I am struggling with is that they are supposed to be the same species. Are you sure? The central ones looks like they have resin blisters, suggesting Abies. But overall the way the foliage is hanging on the few lower branches that are in-shot screams Picea abies (Norway Spruce).

I think Aesculus carnea is the hybrid between A. hippocastanum and A.pavia but A. indica is a species in its own right which most often has white flowers. A. x carnea rarely ends up well. I would agree with the comments about is susceptibility to deformation, canker and decay. I recently put in a Conservation Area notice for one to be removed, the Tree Officer stated that there were so many things wrong with it that he couldn't begin to describe them. The contractor left the butt 0.5m high because he didn't know what to do with the mass of burrs, epicormics, twisted unions and dysfunctional mush at the base. Not a great hybrid except, in my experience, wghen relatively young and vigorous. The main good point is that it flowers attractively while quite smalland young. Also seems up here to be relatively susceptible to Guignardia aesculi.

Aesculus x carnea was my first thought.

That's right, it isn't. And in some areas the LPA is not the Council. Housing should have notified Planning internally. And in theory waited 6 weeks. The key is this. Conservation of trees is a planning matter, if a planning dept authorises or sanctions removal, the legislation clearly intends to avoid the farce of it notifying itself. But if another operational dept does it without any planning context, it is as much a breach of conservation as if you or I did it. No excuse.

I haven't used Access in over 10 years since I realised Ecel does almost everything it does without the fuss. You need a map that will generate your current position as a 1 metre grid reference. Then you need to get your system to insert the grid reference into a database or spreadsheet. That's all that Pocket GIS and similar systems do really. That's the hard part though. If you're tagging and recording without grid references it's so very very easy with any spreadsheet on any computer, tablet or handheld. Time needs to be spent on creating lookup tables, but once done you have them forever.

Are you asking me that or the OP?

Am thinking about that....

Welcome to Arbtalk, I ma always pleased to have anyone contributing to debate. I think you have covered to quite well, along the lines of my attached notes a while ago but with the use of the term 'response wood'. As you have probably noted from the debate so far, it is fair to say that all wood is an adjustment to normal growth. The phrase 'all wood is reaction wood' is so appealing that it could be adopted as the core of a definition such as yours, except that the term 'reaction wood' has very definitely been bagged already to mean tension or compression wood in response to gravity. Hence all the fuss by me about at least getting Wikipedia right in line with published definitions such as Shigo, Lonsdale, Thomas etc. I wopuld add to your list 'Geotropic wood' to clarify that the tendency of trees to grow upwards is distinct from the tendency for trees to put on extra wood (reaction wood) to combat gravity. The next difficulty im my mind is whether wound wood is really flexure wood, because if a stem is removed or breaks off, it creates a flexure point which may just be generating callus as a response to flexure to strengthen the weakness rather than as a covering over.

Jammy sod! The guy wasn't also selling any similarly cheap wood cuttingy things was he?

All I can do is outline the principles. After that you'll bneed to get a soil science book.e.g. Fitzpatrick an introduction to soil sciences (I recommend you steer clear of the common Ashman and Puri essential soil science, it's not very scientific at all). Plants need lots of things from soil. Support, water, minerals, gases, elements (particularly nitrogen and the metals calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and a few others) and humus. A good soil will provide all of these in the right balance for the chosen plants. Support - the texture of the soil will determine this. Clearly a soil composed mainly of sand won't hold up a tree in wind. Water - this might come mainly from the sky but the soil type will determine whether it passes right through (taking all the nutrients with it) or can hold enough to allow plant uptake and to see the plant through dry spells. Gases - mainly carbon dioxide out and oxygen in. Plant roots have to breathe, and too much water will literally drown them. Too much compaction, leaving no spaces between soil grains or routes for gases to and from the surface will asphyxiate them. Elements (and minerals) - these wil be incorporated into the pant material after they are taken up. Plants will simply not be able to function properly or at all if some metals are missing form the soil. The mineral content of the soil also determines water retention capability and 'buffering' of elements, keeping them in steady supply when roots need them. Nitrogen in particular is essential. Plants wouldn't be green without it and therefore couldn't makes sugars from sunshine and would die very quickly. Although air is 80% nitrogen, few plants can take in nitrogen directly from the air. They need to take it in as nitrates, which they do from degraded other plant material, from bacterial output or from fungi that co-exist with the plants. Organic material is therefore pretty much essential but the right bacteria and fungi can be immensely helpful. Organic material in the form of humus is also almost essential for soil texture for buffering and water retention. Soil texture is hugely affected by particle size distribution. A good soil (a loam) will have sand, silt and clay particles. Any soil that is skewed towards or away from one of these 3 particle types will be compromised. And finally pH. This is a result of most or all of the aforegoing things. Too much calcium for example will give an alkaline soil and rhododendrons will not like it at all. A lack of calcium would contribute to a soil being acidic, and the rhodies would like it. Other plants and fungi and bacteria might not, so the soil might be almost useless for anything but rhodies, ericaceous plants and the like. So there's your potted guide to soil science. For your client I would be very wary of trying to produce 'absolute' results, these can only be done in lab conditions. What perhaps is important for them and you is 'relative' results. Take your samples say a foot down around the rhodies. Then do the same in another part of the garden that doesn't have them and is away from their influence. Try to assess density (compaction) of all samples and presence or absence of worms and bugs. Do the glass bottle settling test for all samples. Get some litmus paper (I just bought 80 sheets on ebay for £2). Now you have some raw data to present. But what I mean by relative results is that if the soils are about the same in both locations, you can say with some certainty that the soil part of the equation is not significant and can be ruled out. You cna then concentrate on disease symptoms and abiotic factors. Soil testing kits can be bought, but they're generally cheap and nasty. The last one I got broke on its first usage. And even if you do go for that option, you might get more precise results but you won't be able to bluff intrepreting them. It's not just a case of compensating for mineral deficiencies by adding plant food or fertiliser. Teh wrong fertiliser for the situation could be worse than doing nothing. Welcome to the world of soil science and what Shigo calls the 'tree system'. Trees without soil are just firewood, and it's the interaction with soil and situation that makes trees truly fascinating.

Yeah, I gave up on moulding a bar. When I think about it, if I value my time at about £15 an hour the new bar cost me 1 hour. I 'spent' about £45 trying to fix the old one. I just hate throwing things out that could be fixed.

I don't know which sources to believe. The UK is probably utting in about £8Bn a year and getting out £4Bn. But as someone has just said earlier it's about net expenditure c/w benefits. Like if you say I pay National Insuarance contributions every year but I only get free prescriptions worth £xx. It's an insurance policy and a return on intangible and other benefits. I'm kind of resigned now to England dragging the UK out of the EU. A nation of shopkeepers, it has been said. Never did know how to get on with the rest of the world.

Unless you say why it's needed, no-one can give you basic advice. maybe you just need to take an auger sample and report that yes it is soil and not bricks or rock and that it is loam/clay/sandy loam etc. and what depth you went to. Some of the most meaningful results per £ I have had have been obtained by half filling a glass bottle with the 'soil' and topping up with water then shaking like hell and leaving it to stand for a few hours. Layers will form and give an idea of how much clay, silt and soil and organics. It's a doddle to take a pH test of the reamining water with litmus paper. The main thing then you are missig is mineral content, and particularly nitrogen. There's a simpe test for that too, but I'm not going to waste time explaining it in case its' more than you need.