daltontrees

Sorry again I have been up north once again and working so hard I have been falling asleep every evening before getting to the 'puter. I will send you my address just now. I have outlined the benefits of a polarising microscope, but it's far from essential. As well as the ability to look at cellulose concentration ad degradation (a very rare requirement except for academic interest) the polarising microscopes are among the few ones that have rotating stages, and I find that feature useful.

What are we looking at in the second picture? Was it inside the cavity? Is it shrapnel?

Not much sun to be seen, but here's a silhouette of my mum's Wellies.

What qualifications do you have, my recommendations and suggestions would depend on your response?

So get one, and we can all compare notes...

Please, please please post to me, as I would very much like to experiment with fixing before spring and bud burst. I will send some spare slides in return. Will sne d private message. Sorry I have been off line for a couple of days as I have been up north.

Maybe see if you can download teh manual for it and chek what it's meant to run on. Most chaisaws, and all the ones I've had, are 1:50. It might be tempting to err ont eh safe side and use 1:25 but that can be bad for the carb and the timing (I've been told) if it really needs 1:50. Also better to use chainsaw 2 stroke oil, it's designed for faster revving of saws (18,000 rpm) than lawenmowers (?3,000 rpm).

Three different situations being discussed here already, the one in the Mail which involves landlord and tenant law, the company car next door and your own TPO'd tree. Which are you most interested in?

Sorry, I din't answer the question. The answer is of course yes. You have to start from scratch, save that the principle of development for your proposed use at the density that has been approved has been established.The COuncil woud be unwise to revisit the use, the density and the suitability for development by refusing a new application. Any trees that have to go because of the revised layout but didn't have to for the old layout will have to be considered afresh. And any trees that don't have to be removed for the new layout but had to for the old layout could be retained if the Council thought it appropriate.

These are really nice pictures, I am going to have to contemplate these for a bit in light of new information (new to me anyway) supplied by btggaz.

Tree removal in a Conservation Area never needs 'approval', you have to notify the Council of intention to do the works and the only way they can stop you doing it is to put a Tree Preservation Order on the tree(s) or negotiate their retention as part of a planning consent. A new application will allow the Council to consider the effect of the development on trees in the new context. I would think that if no measures TPOs or planning conditions) to prevent the necessary removal of trees in the current consent were needed, the situation might be the same for the new application. If the removal of the treees for the existing consent is necessary (not just desireable or convenient), they can be removed now with impunity.

The following is lifted from someone's website. LOGS TO BURN Logs to burn, logs to burn, Logs to save the coal a turn Here's a word to make you wise, When you hear the woodman's cries. Never heed his usual tale, That he has good logs for sale, But read these lines and really learn, the proper kind of logs to burn. OAK logs will warm you well, If they're old and dry. LARCH logs of pine wood smell, But the sparks will fly. BEECH logs for Christmas time, YEW logs heat well. SCOTCH logs it is a crime, For anyone to sell. BIRCH logs will burn too fast, CHESTNUT scarce at all HAWTHORN logs are good to last, If you cut them in the fall HOLLY logs will burn like wax, You should burn them green ELM logs like smouldering flax, No flame to be seen PEAR logs and APPLE logs, they will scent your room. CHERRY logs across the dogs, Smell like flowers in bloom But ASH logs, all smooth and grey, burn them green or old; Buy up all that come your way, They're worth their weight in gold. Note that all woods burn better when seasoned and some burn better when split rather than as whole logs. In general the better woods for burning that you are most likely to come by (including non-native species) are: Apple and pear – burning slowly and steadily with little flame but good heat. The scent is also pleasing. Ash – the best burning wood providing plenty of heat (will also burn green but you should not need to do this!) Beech and hornbeam – good when well seasoned Birch – good heat and a bright flame – burns quickly. Blackthorn and hawthorn – very good – burn slowly but with good heat Cherry – also burns slowly with good heat and a pleasant scent. Cypress – burns well but fast when seasoned, and may spit Hazel – good, but hazel has so many other uses hopefully you won’t have to burn it! Holly – good when well seasoned Horse Chestnut – good flame and heating power but spits a lot. Larch – fairly good for heat but crackles and spits Maple – good. Oak – very old dry seasoned oak is excellent, burning slowly with a good heat Pine – burns well with a bright flame but crackles and spits Poplar – avoid all poplar wood – it burns very slowly with little heat – which is why poplar is used to make matchsticks. Willow – very good – in fact there is growing interest in biomass production of coppiced willow as a fuel. I think alll of the above relates to open fires. Obviously spitting doesn't matter ina stove and stoves are so much hotter than fires that just about anything will, burn in them. It looks like I'll give Holly another try. When I think of all the Holly wood I have chucked due to that bad splitting experience...

See '200 year old cedar in Dorset' in the general chat forum

See '200 year old cedaer in Dorset' in the general chat forum

I'd say one of the Poplars.

I think it's a hybrid between Cedrus and Laburnum.

By the way, anybody looking in from north of the border please note that my comments are based on the english legislation, the scottish Act is not in force yet and is subtly different on one count (the way gaps are to be treated) and vastly different on the matter of deciduous trees i.e. do they form a barrier to light and if not and it's a mixed hedge do they form gaps?

Sorry, it burns well enough but takes so long to dry that I tend not to bother with it. I had a bad expereince trying to split it a while ago. It is extremely dense and once I get it into the truck it usually just stays there until tipped. Maybe I'll try it again.

If Jeremy Barrell's assessment of the situation is correct (which I fully expect it is) someone in the National Trust and the Council officer that let the Conservation Area notification through should in my opinion be ashamed of themselves.

Terrible for burning but woodturners like it.

I just got a new Acer laptop, with Windows 8. Every day new ways of hating it are thrust under my nose as I find needless changes to interfaces, incompatibilites, that annoying obligatory Microsoft membership and so forth. Within a few days I wanted to throw it out the window.The latest Word and Excel have changes for changes sake, and in general looks like an annoying regressive step. The new Explorer is pants. I just change over to Firefox tonight and won't be going back. With some systematic and determined disabling of all the nonsense in WIdows 8 it can be rendered bearable, but I would gladly have Vista back (and it was annoying) or XP.

Thanks for all this. I have read Castelli etc. in the past and I think it is a very useful general examination of some of the issues arising from the (english) Act. It says for example that a hedge is a freestanding line forming a boundary. You ask "Is it a row of trees or a hedge"? I say (ignoring shrubs for now) that the definition of a hedge is or includes that it is a row of trees. Presumably a group TPO would allow a hedge to be protected without getting concerned about the individual trees. The case looks in more detail as whether there are gaps and whether these would stop it being a hedge. If they do, that's the end of the story. The Act cannot apply. If they don't, it has passed only the first test of whether it is a hedge. It then has to pass the test of whether it is a high hedge. What becomes all-important is whether and to what extent it is a 'barrier to light'. The existence of gaps in the statutory sense here is different as to the basic test. In the basic test gaps could prevent it from being a hedge. In the statutory sense the gaps determine the extent to which it is a barrier to light, for the purpose of calculating the action hedge height, but if the overall effect of the gaps above 2m is significant then it stops being a 'barrier to light' and cannot therefore any longer come within the definition of a 'high hedge'.

Thanks Treeseer. I had hoped they developed into fasciated branches. If anyone has a fasciated twig and wants to send it to me I will make a thin section of it and put the pictures on Arbtalk. PM me for my postal address.

Me too. But here's the rub. If TPO'd trees (or a tree that could be TPOd in response to a high hedge complaint) are blocking so much light that they are adversely affecting the reasonable enjoyment of the property (which could be the property on which the trees stand), isn't it morally repugnant that the property owner should be denied all the health and wellbeing benefits that underpinned the high hedges legislation in the first place? It's a separate question but related very directly to the original one. Could a LA refuse a TPO application and defend it successfully at appeal if refusal would result in continued adverse affect on reasonable enjoyment of a property?

Sorry, I meant if the LA receives a high hedge complaint on a row of trees that are so close grown that they constitute a hedge. So the question is whether they could react by TPOing the trees in the hedge. The Antisocial Behaviour Act defines a hedge as comprising trees or shrubs. So any evergreens in the hedge that are not shrubs are trees and can be TPOd. You have flagged up correctly that,contrary to the commonly held view,deciduous trees can be the subject of a high hedge remedial notice, not just evergreens. In Scotland it is worse, a wholly deciduous hedge could be. Of course, the remedial notice doesn't have to say that the hedge has to be cut to single height. But if it isn't (and especially if deciduous trees are involved), the poor LA officer dealing with it can't use the Guidance in Hedge Height and Light Loss any more and will have to resort to the British Standard, he BRE Site Layout and Planning guidance and had best get himself some sky protractors, sunpath diagrams and a detailed understanding of vertical skylight components, daylighting factors and winter sunlight hours. And a large packet of aspirin while he is at it.