daltontrees

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.

A most enjoyable read. Do you know what happen if a fasciated twig is allowed to keep growing for a few years?

It might be the appropriate reaction, and might even be intra vires but if you had applied for a high hedge notice, wouldn't you be livid that the Council seemed to be abusing its position?.

A quick and hypothetical question for anyone out there who is with it on High Hedges. What would happen if a Council got an application for the reduction of a high hedge and then realised that the hedge comprised trees of significant amenity value, and to protect them against reduction it wanted to TPO them?

Gilman (2003) is very nice too. Sensibly he did not try to debunk Shigo based on only small trees of one species. I wonder if he was ever taken up on his recommendation of multi-species larger tree research? I spotted a typo in the Bibliography - Shigo 1985 : How tree branches are attacked...

Neely (1991) is a fabulous piece of work. I had no idea that this research had been done. This is what I mean about good methodology. I may read it again just to admire the quality of the approach regardless of the results.

Well, I was going to go out and do some work but it looks like that's my morning spoken for now. Thanks for the documents. Generally, no-one whose research methodologies are rigorous and whose approach is scientific should be bothered by criticism. It's the lifeblood of the advancement of collective understanding. If pseudoscience or nonsense methodologies or unsubstantiated assumptions or personal agendas stand in the way of that, it really annoys me, and so it should. I, you and everyone else are peers, we are reviewing albeit fairly informally. I'm not even thinking about Slater in particular. Just making a general point that echoes yours.

"the environment secretary had long made it clear that his priority was growing the economy as well as improving the natural environment". Now there's two priorities that are mutually exclusive. Mercifully we should be able to vote these people out before they get to do any real damage.

What an intriguing picture! Was it a Pine, and if so do you know which species? And what height would that slice have been at when the tree was growing?

The OP's second picture (of the bark) had flaky and smooth, a bit inconclusive and no scale to suggest how old the stem was. I don't know about menziesii hardiness either. A. unedo is a bit of a curiosity, definitely naturalised in UK and Ireland and does well apparently on the south western tip of Ireland. Dunno if menziesii would stand it. It's possibly the maritime influence and salt in the air that saves it from serious frost damage.

Wait, who are we saying is god, Mattheck or Shigo? And much as I am prepared to accept polytheism, I can't see Slater being much more than an altar boy so far. PS, any chance of getting a shot on that Gilman article after you've read it please?

Could equally be Arbutus menziesii, but it's much rarer.

Indeed, anything that makes me think hard is good. And what you refer to about Slater's fame is what I meant by gaining advantage. It's all very well getting better known, but I would rather be known for being constructive.

I think that's what I meant. That is to say, it would be appropriate to wait for the Council to direct you to replant rather than automatically replanting. That way they get to choose size, position and species.

No, it was just generalised cynicism. Forget it, I am just a bit of a grump sometimes and the Slater article always came across to me as not particularly constructive.

Regulation 14(2)(b). 5 days notice required by law. Unless it's dangerous , in which case notify them as soon as you can but get on with the removal. Replanting is not mandatory, it's up to the Council to specify it.

My cynical view is that we should be surprised not by what is in Pandora's Box but by how much truth is wilfully concealed by those who stand to gain advantage by the concealment.

I meant that YOU would have solved the riddle by Easter. Go for it, that's what I say. If you have an inquiring mid that imagines the way trees work at a cellular level, seeing them at a cellular level with the use of a microscope takes you right into that world. You don't need to be Alice in Wonderland to appreciate how liberating it can be to take a stroll amongst the xylem.