daltontrees

A fab conference, I doubt if there will be one like it for a long time. Were you there? It wouldn't have answered your thread but it seemed to address a lot of generalities that point to answers to most questions. For an anorak like me anyway...

Thanks David. I looked for but didn't notice any galls. We may be back on site in a few months to do some reductions and with client's consent I will run a silky through some brackets and see if there is any discernable morphology. I think he will just want to see them chomp away at the lump as quickly as possible but if I have a big saw on the go I might get to take a section throughthe big lump anyway.

'Permitted Development' strictly speaking means you don't need permission. Application met with silence means a deemed refusal. which I suppose means you may have developed unlawfully. As has been suggested, maybe get some independent planning advice. Possibly try Planning Aid, it's like Legal Aid. Good starting point for a free initial consultation.

Nuisance as you probably appreciate means two things. 1. a pain in teh *rse because of leaf fall and satellite singal. 2. A potentially actionable encroachment, a strictly legal issue.

Alas the stove went on 2 nights ago, a load of Scots pine that has been in teh living room all summer went whoosh and turned the place into a tropical hothouse. It was nice to see the flames sending a cheery glow across the room and hear the jet-engine roar of a well-ventilated stove doing its thing again.

I've seen loads of Oudemansiella mucida, this is a textbook fruiting body. Unimportant in general terms except as a symptom of other problems with a (Beech) tree, but trivial in the overall context of this tree.

Tag means nothing, it is either TPod or not. If you have already applied then good. But that is definitely Meripilus which can cause toree to go over in one from just beneath the surface especially if fruiting freely like that. If your house is in the firing line you have also the option of notifying the Council that you plan to remove it on the grounds that it is imminently dangerous. There is statutory basis for this. You need only wait 5 days before felling. Get a tree surgeon that is willing to vouch in writing for the level of urgency and to give you a quote for removal, send the report to the Council and fell the tree 5 days later. No Council in it's right mind will resist a genuinely urgent case especially where Meripilus is extensive. Worry about who pays later. Get it assessed and then if recommended get it down.

Darn, just seen this, could have given you a day. Best to post these things in the Employment section, anyone looking for a day here or there looks in there first.

Thanks guys. The comparison with the shots of L.s on willow are pretty convincing. The tree in question I was subbing on, I turned up and stripped it and rigged it down in 2 days and have no idea about it's history. No fruiting present when I was there. Now that I think of it, the texture was not unlike the fruiting body of fungus. The pattern of decay seems consistent with L.s. Tree was leaning almost 30 degrees on the decay side, I wonder if early degradation and the compression had allowed internal cracks to develop, subsequently occupied by the fungus. Oh well, I'm glad it's gone as it was a killer tree.

Ta, Paul, all input gratefully received. I think pics 2 and 3 could have both species, 4 is adspersum/australe and 5 could be applanatum. For what it's worth the dead bracket on 1 looks more like adspersum.

I am guessing you mean the rope is for pulling and not for attaching to trees. If you want a lightweight kit one way to keep it light is to have only 10m of wire rope at the winch end and use rope rope for the felled tree end. The rope should have as little stretch as possible, a stretchy one is no good. I use a 16mm lowering rope, but only to coax a tree over. If it's for insurance against it going the wrong way, I'll double it up.

I found this the other day while looking a t a job for someone. The first pic shows an enormous lump of Beech lying on its side under dense canopy cover at the bottom of a slope. It is really a large fork left there after development site clearance I would guess 6 years ago. It has one dead bracket, just visible top left, now in the vertical plane. Ths I have taken to indicate Ganoderma was present before the tree was dismantled. All other brackets on the lump are horizontal and have presumably developed on teh ground. The proximal end of the lump has an outstanding group of Ganoderma brackets. See picture. At first glance I thought they were G. adspersum. Then I thought they were G. applanatum. Then I began to wonder if it was both. I told the owner I wouldn't damage them. Sorry about the pics the light was very poor and I had only a basic camera. Can the two co-exist generally, and is that what's happening here?

I would be obliged to anyone that can help explain this. We cut down a large multistemmed White Willow (Salix alba) recently. INside the butt along with a lot of decay wee a number of small fissures filled with a white dry rubberty substance, akin to set silica flexible sealant. It could be picked out in small bits. See pictures. Anyone know what it is, what it's for, how did it get there?

It's on Schonbeinstrasse in the Swiss sector, fairly central. Tram stop right outside. Part of the University and it is behind the Botanical Sciences building. If you go there, they have an excellent catalogue which I got goven a copy of because I asked so many questions (mainly translations). If you go under the hothouse there is a workshop area where the curator hangs out. Show her any professional interest and I'm sure you'll get a copy. It's in German but the important bits are in Latin. Tell her the scottish guy that came in 2013 said she would be giving away copies because they are out of date, she told me the Paulownia at the gate was about to be removed. It did look awful. Not the one in my pics, it was elsewhere. The rest of the pictures were taken here there and everywhere but quite a few in Lorrach in the park beside the Suchard houses, people locally will know where that is if you get off at Lorrach Musee. Worth going to see the twin stemmed monster G. biloba and certainly the biggest M. glyptostroboides I've ever seen. It's just inside Germany and the second last stop on the Lorrach line from Basel Deutsche Banhof but the train starts in the Swiss station so you can get on there. Easyjet flies to Basel Mulhouse, really quite cheap. And Basel/Bale/Basle is fabulous. If you think the germans have civic pride, they will look like amateurs when you see how spick and span and smooth-running a city centre the Swiss do. And trees are accorded proper place.

The pictures do suggest an old vertical crack which has either admitted decay or has been the result of hollowing then buckling. The ddecay doesn't look like it goes below the bottom of the old crack, so it's most likely the former. I'd love to have seen it go, my guess would be that wind forces re-opened the old crack and extended it rapidly out through the stem and with that lean and hollowing it would easily and quickly propogate down to the base on the other side. It migh have been enough to pull the stem to the left (looking in the direction of fall) slightly, accounting for which house got hit despite the lean direction. Lucky no-one got hurt.

Well done, I don't think I would have got a few of them without labels or seeing the hwole tree for a couple of minutes. Say what you want about teh germans, but they are hard to beat on civic pride. Not a single tree had been vandalised, so they were generally all in very good condition and trouble had been taken in many places to plant a good variety of species. It was a joy just to walk down an average street.

Ahh, well spotted. I think I missed the real 24, which is Prunus serrula which teh Germans call Mahogani-Kirsche, can't think of British name for now. So the last of the answers should be 21 Sequoiadendron giganteum Giant Redwood 22 Populus x canescens Grey Poplar 23 Davidia involucrata Handkerchief Tree 24 Prunus serrula 25 Cercis siliquastrium Judas Tree 26 Rhamnus davurica Dahurian Buckthorn

So, did anyone look at these? How did you do?

Last of the answers. 21 Sequaoiadendron giganteum Giant Redwood 22 Popuus x canescens Grey Poplar 23 Davidia involucrata Handkerchief Tree 24 Cercis siliquastrium Judas Tree 25 Rhamnus davurica Dahurian Buckthorn, a right difficult one

Very interesting video and nice to see what Mattheck and Weber look like in real life. Useful examples of Plane Massaria towards the end.

Beech Bark Disease is a fungus Nectria coccinea, hte tree gets nfected by it due to the spores being carried on boring insects Cryptocuccus fagisuga. That looks liek a heavy putbreak, get them scrubbed off before spring and it might not bee too late for the tree. A couple of heavy outbreaks in a row can be enough to kill a tree off slowly a few years after te insects are gone.

You might need to clarify a few things. Did you apply for planning permission for use of the barn and yard as wood processing and storage? And sales? And was the application refused? Or is the Council taking enforcement action against you for these uses on the basis that you haven't got consent? Are you extracting timber from the nearby land you mention? Has there historically been a link between the barn/yard and that land for forestry extraction and storage? Pending you answering some of these, it sounds like a case where the Council would have been OK with the use of the barn/yard if it was ancillary to timber extraction but might now feel that the wood business is a separate use in its own right. If you are buying in timber for processing and storage, the Council would be right to feel that. There are so many things to take into account in deciding planning applications or appeals. Council policies, national policies, the supply of suitable sites elsewhere, the need for the use, traffic generation, noise, loss of amenity, neighbouring uses, loss of the original use of the land etc. Rarely a black or white issue, lots of grey areas.

But if the seller gets what he wants on the open market then they are the same thing.

I would agre with Mr Balir. If you take it back to the stems, it will never go green again. Climb up inside the middle 'tree', make yourself comfortable, if it's bee topped bewfore there will be a little perch in there somehwere. Pick a height, the height of previous topping or just above is the obvious choice, otherwise 10' (3m) is a good default. Get a Silky, cut a window through all stems at that height on the garden side till you can see civilisation, then just carry on cutting and chucking till the top's done. Then get down somehow, have a quick look at the sides to see how much can go while still leaving a bit of green, take off any of the thicker branches with Silky or loppers then give the rest of it the good news with hedge trimmers. Tidy up, job done. Neighbours will love it.

Hurrah!