daltontrees

You should be able to get the old head put on a new shaft for a fraction of the price of a new axe. Burn or drill out the old wood. If getting a wholke new axe, don't get him a fibreglass shaft, the vibrations are quite sore compared to hickory.

Either report him or forget about it. The guy's either followed the spec or he hasn't.

Bizarre! My guess is that that cavity has been there for a good while and there is a proto-soil in there which is suitable for the sort of fungus you would normally find in a mulchy situation. I found a n Amethyst deceiver inside a tree last week, for example. My first reaction was it was Amanita muscaria, which can occasionally be seen with those white blisters only round the rim and with a largely blister-free red cap. Looking forward to hearing mopre about gills etc...

Respect! That is a proper tree. I can see why the Council was reluctant to let it go and why root pruning close-in would have created an unacceptable hazard.

There is some recent trenching (possibly gas main) along the footway on the same side as the Meripilus main outbreaks (which I expect is the cause of the infection), but the Meripilus is also now popping through some pinched bark on another quarter. This tree could stand up for another 15 years, the footway is the windward side and so far there is no sign of canopy thinning but it's a busy road with queuing traffic at traffic lights. 24m high and a spread radius of about 14 metres, ludicrously overextended lower limbs. It's TPO'd, magnificent and prominent. It's a brave man that will leave it very long. Risk managers, lawyers and insurers don't seem willing to live in tree-time.

I suppose it would have been better if I hasd just said 'isn't it good for everyone that the system was put together well in the first place and works in practice?' All that fuss about that wee tree in that dodgy condition? Sort of tree that gets removed to get at a real tree. Shame on the Council! Out of curiosity, did the Inspector award costs?

I will send you a PM initially about this. Valuation hasn't really been raised on Arbtalk and it might deserve a separate thread. An unproven common ownership on a hedgerow is a fine example of the inadequacies of current valuation thinking, but debating a specific case in public I would suggest is not the best way to debate the generalities.

Me too, and hopefully the Council too and all onlookers whatever their persuasion. Whom would have thought there was so much to interpret in so few words of some (seemingly) obscure legislation? Is it not thus that the will of Parliament is voiced again and again, and that the common man finds solace in his place with power? And vice versa?

6 months later and I have finally got round to replying. Attachd is before and after pictures of dried out specimen. I had begun to think that those gills were not gills at all but fibres within the fruiting body. Despite close examination of dried and rehydrateds specimen I could not find anything resembling pores. But revisiting the tree this week kind of answered the question. Last spring there was no evidence of such extensive fruiting having taken place. This year it seems to have gone bonkers. In conclusion the rehydration was not particularly helpful in this case.

Sounds like you are heading for a non-acrimonious outcome. Always good news! Regarding valuations, it is entirely possible to carry out a Hwelliwell valuation of a tree as-is and then a valuation of the same tree if it was pruned back. This is because the measurement part of the Helliwell system can easily be adapted to the measurements of a hypothetically pruned tree. A simple example would be this. Tree before pruning has canopy profile area of 120m2, gets 6 Helliwell points. The other factors (life expectancy, importance, other trees, relation to setting and form) come to 30 points. 6 x 30 x £28/point = £5,040. Tree after pruning has a canopy profile area of 90m2, gets 5 Helliwell points. The other factors are the same. New value 5 x 30 x £28 = £4,200. But of course it's not that simple. If the pruning changes the 'form' rating of the tree by one category, its value becomes £2,100. If the pruning only reduced the area to 100m2, there is no change in value because there is no change in area category. These are flaws inherent in the Helliwell system. Using it blindly like a calculator is dangerous.

That's a decent shout, thanks.

Could well be one of the Hypholoma, I was hedging my bets because almost everyone of the mushrooms had half a veil (i.e. on one side only) close under the cap.

Nearby, these on the remains of what I think must have been Alder.

I am not sure what these are, possibly Armillaria? Host completely hollow and unidentifiable.

This one is my favourite though, I suppose this is geotropism in acvtion. Fomes fomentarius on (unidentifiable) fallen stem, the stem seems to have been in various orientations before coming to its current position. HAs produced a lovely spiral shell-like bracket.

Some pictures from Glen Nevis at the weekend. Amanita muscaria, Piptoporus betulinus and Ganoderma adspersum.

It's possible it's Larix decidua 'Pendula'

A sensible outcome, your perseverance has been rewarded. I suppose it wasn't the Inspector's job to clarify the law but he seems to be applying the principle of 'necessary' in the right pragmatic way i.e. necessary doesn't mean absolutely no other way of doing it but rather means no practical way. He seems then to have jumped straight to the total removal presumably accepting the evidence that the root-pruned tree would be unviable. Maybe what was useful to your client in the end was that the Council never refuted that, only refuting that there was a practical alternative to pruning.

Try Tracey Recycling in Linwood.

Up here in Scotland I have seen a few walnut trees, not a single nut to be seen. Too cold I think. You must be getting a last sniff of the gulf stream or something down there.

I don't have a list, it's in my head. However, you might find the attached ISA form instructions a good starting point for learners. Presumably I don't need to explain teh difference between VTA and risk assessment, you will be able to work out easily enough which bits apply to the former and not the latter. I know for a fact the form can be downloaded for free but I can't find it just now. ISABasicTreeRiskAssessmentForm_Instructions.pdf

Definitely! Although if there are no unusual risks it should be a formality. So much of risk reduction in arb work is achieved by using people who are qualified.

It looks like the one in the centre has gills, not pores, which if so rules out Oxyporus. Rules out most of the nastys too, except of course Armillaria, which it could be. The grouping is big enough for Armillaria.

No almost about it, the husks contain all sorts of smelly chemicals including vanilla. They must be irresistible.

Sorry, pruning would be pointless, if the tree rats want the nuts they will get them. Unless you make it impossible for them to climb the trunk too. Even then, they can jump a fair distance from tree to tree. I am curious to know whereabouts you are to be getting walnuts, they usually need lots of warmth?