daltontrees

One more from the Canaries. This one I know because my mother-in-law has verified it from one she had in her garden in Malta.

I do believe you are right! Thanks, I never would have found that. I have found out the name equisetifolia comes from the similarity to horsetail (equisetum), it looks remarkably similar. It must be just the ticket in the incessant drying winds of the Canary Isles.

Thanks for posting the pics, that tree wasa probably about as stiff as a cardboard tube compared to a tightly rolled up newspaper. You advised client well and he /she took right course of action. You'll never know if that has avoided someone being hurt or worse but definitely better safe than sorry. Another tree wil be along shortly to replace it.

There's one for sale in a nearby nursery, has been there for a while. When they finally get a sale they will have to take the roof off the conservatory and crane it out, it and its concrete tub must come in at about 2 tonnes.

Nice pictures, nepia, it's amazing how Olive just shrugs off its problems and keeps going. I wonder if it is resists decay because of the dry climate or because of some special defence system it has.

That Olivier was just for practice, but here's another one from the same sunny location that I don't know what it is but I wouldn't waste peoples' time by asking for an ident. If anyone knows please share it with me and others.

right first time. Here's a picture of the whole tree. Im pressive girth for little substantial canopy. And growing in what amounts to dust.

OK what's this gnarly old thing, recently photographed a good 4 hours' flight south of here?

A curious attribute of A. campestre (I read about it in a book then tried it when I found a few last winter) is that on a cold day the stem is slightly warm to the touch. We are not short of cold days just now, so it is worth giving that tree a wee squeeze someday and seeing if it is noticably warm. Don't know why, but it's true.

I just read the original question again. I thought it was about how (and why) to specify for diversity. But someone posted almost right away the answer to another question that you might have been asking which is how do you express the degree of existing diversity numerically. Which could be the Shannon Index or alternatively the Simpson Index. Some fairly heavy duty statistics calculations needed to work them out. Wikipedia introduces them quite well. But unless someone puts a gun to my head and makes me compare the diversity of species in two similar woodlands I aint never ever using them.

Sorry, meant to say the "GPS accuracy is worse than useless"

If you are just plotting (manually, if need be) a few on a map to indicate their position relative to roads and buildings, Promap is the way, but expensive map-by-map. An account is good if you use them ferequently. Last year I used a Geo Trimble with installed GIS maps, super-accurate and indestructible but too small a screen. Reports were easy because it exported data in Excel format. I am currently using Ezytreev with GIS maps and it is very straightforward, but I am using the client's maps and I don't know how dear they are. It is on a Samsung tablet and the GIS accuracy is worse than useless, so expect to manual plot on site. Report generation impossible without Ezytreev license and slow/enormous programme. Just all depends on how often you are using it and how particular the client is about reporting format.

Not another new one to the UK, I hope? Here in the west of Scotland all but a few Eucalyptus have been wiped out by what I assumed to be two successive hard winters of 09/10 and 10/11. They seemed to cause splits in the bark especially at the base but sometimes extending right up teh trunk. We took a lot of dead ones down , they generally had extensive mycelial sheets beneath large areas of separated bark, which could be pulled off like large plates. In effect what seemed to have lkilled the trees was not so much rupture due to frost but fungal infection admitted into and under bark by frost splits. These were all E. gunnii. This could I suppose be confused with rapid cambium killling of Armillaria? I haven't had a chance to look at any survivors to see if they were partly frost damaged but if they were and had a degree of bark separation they might well look like your pictures. Also of course I can't say whether recovery has taken place in any of the survivors. The standing deadwood of the victims seemed to show little short-term loss of strength and when felled had only zonal discoloration. I hope this observation is helpful in some wy and that for the sake of the remaining Eucalyptus population you tree has only got the same problem and not this nasty sounding Australian business.

The 10, 20 and 30 have probably been chosen for ease of remembering rather than due to any Fionacci connection. As they are ratios rahter than whole numbers the true Fibonacci series starting with 10% would be 10%, 16% and 26%. What would be really really interesting and evidence of the 10-20-30 formula being sound would be whether a woodland left to its own devices (as if H. sapiens would ever let that happen!) obeys the formula. If time and drinking obligations allow over the next week, I may try it out with a couple of NVCs. It would be lovely if it worked out...

From an Americal website "Frank Santamour of the United States Arboretum, without taking ownership, described in 1990 the 10-20-30 formula to develop a diverse tree population within a community or landscape. The rule-of-thumb is straightforward and is as follows: Plant •no more than 10% of any species, •no more than 20% of any genus, •no more than 30% of any family." This seems to be referred to generally as the 10-20-30 rule, but it is not so much a rule as a aparently a convention that has arisen from consensus. It would be nice (in answer to the riginal question) to be able to call it "Santamour's Rule" but as shown in the article that someone attached earlier in this thread it is not his but rather he has given it a degree of authority by testing then endorsing it. If I ever need a short title for it I think I will go with "10-20-30 formula".

C'mon guys, season of goodwill an all that! Now what was the question?

Just realised that if you are worried about not having LOLERed kit for your tests you can but prusik loops from Honey Bros that are EN certified and therefore can be used for 6 months before requiring inspection. They are about £7 + VAT.

We put a short length of shrink wrap on the rope before tying and setting the knot, write out a laundry label with indelible pen, slip the shrink wrap iover the knot and heat it with a hot hair dryer, it shrinks in place permanently and protects the knot, holding the label in place too. I think Honey Bros or Buxtons sell the wrap.

Yep that's just mould. Dry the wood and wipe it off with meths then sand if necessary. Larch is famously decay resistant and is used externally on buildings unstained as it will eventually 'silver' and a take on a distinctive and some say desirable natural weathering colour. Options are to use a clear fungicidal preservative, a clear ,matt varnish or a combined stain/preservative. Or do nothing, the mould would get washed off outdoors.

OK but I still say keep it simple, tree can go without consent as no CA or TPO. The development is irrelevant as long as the tree is taken down first and as a separate contract. Put it this way, would there be this debate of there wasn't a planning consent in place or if the client decided never to implement it? The consent makes no difference to the situation until it is implemented. If you sub to the builder there could be repercussions for the client and you. I wouldn't hold back for the sake of keeping a good rapport with the TO, I would do what is in client's best interest. And as someone suggested, it is aplanning matter if at all and should go to the DCO not to the TO. And eparately, I guess, to the Roads Dept for use of the verge. Good luck with teh rigging down. Any chance of a picture purely out of general interest?

Spruce Pirate has hit the nail on the head. If there was no application and no permission for development then there is nothing to stop tree removal. If Planning had wanted it retained in the no-development scenario they would have TPOd it. If they wanted to retained in the development scenario they would have used planning condition. Lack of tick in box irrlevant since application has subsequently been approved (twice). The only grey area here is that Council can quite rightly use the receipt of an aplication to assess whether trees are under threat and then use TPO or conditions to protect them. Me, I would notify the Council. There can be no penalty (in the absence of TPO or CA) for someone removing their own tree. The development proposal is a distraction from this fundamental principle. BUT the plans said the tree would be retained and the Council would have taken that as a No as far as that tree was concerned. The wise thing here is to tell, not ask, the Council, it is for the Council to decide if the tree is of sufficient amenity value to be protected. In telling them I wouldn't even mention the development, If the tree were removed now before development and under a separate contract from the building work there would be no problem. If it was the other way around there could be but the penalty for not disclosing something in a planning application that is subsequently done as part of the development is hard to pin down if at all. On balance I think your client would be in the right. Just because it's a big tree doesn't mean it's a good tree that has to be preserved for public benefit at the expense of preventing a landowner doing what he likes with it.

Sorry, Paul, I thought I saw the butt stand up after the severing. Anyway, man on site can always read tension and compression better than video audience. I might have ended up doing a similar dart cut but a bit further down but definitely would have put wedges in either side before cutting the top strap, to save the saw getting jammed.

That's the way to do it! Lovely pictures and even lovelier equipment.

Fair enough, Jonny. I'm not sure how I feel about coming across as overeducated, but I do like a debate and to look beyond knee-jerk reactions to problems. As you say boundary tree disputes invariably turn out to be nothing to do with the trees, and trees are just the pawns in a mind-game between two parties. One phenomenon you haven't mentioned is the cost of tree works arising from a neighbour's request for light, many tree owners will not admit that they can't afford the work and would rather pass off their resistance as defence of the trees. Once attitudes crystallise they never really dissolve. Many disputes we resolve are eased considerably by tree work being at joint expense, hoewever reluctantly by one or both parties. Rarely disputes have ended up in court, too far gone to be resolved any other way. The Scottish Parliament has just taken evidence on the new Bill, including from the English experience which has concluded the threat of Council intervention has encouraged resolution. I am in favour of Scottish legislation, and put in my tuppence worth to the Parliament saying so. Of the 88 written submissions, all but a couple were in favour of an Act. I am sure it will come to be. However, if the calls for the Act to cover deciduous trees are heeded it will be disastrous firstly for procedural reasons and secondly that the Bill has not been drafted in a way that would work for broadleaves. Your 7' rule would make most garages, some sheds, a few pergolas, swings, climbing frames, the odd greenhouse, perhaps garden statues and definitely qite a lot of shrubs illegal. Surely this is not what you propose? You must be living in a very flat bit of the world to have reached ('scuse the pun) that view? I am sympathetic to people who live in gloom. The pressure group wanting the new Act is asking for hedges to be cut down wher the intention behind the planting has been to piss off a neighbour. What a ludicrous premise, even the courts find it very very difficult to prove historic intent. Clearly there is a problem but the quality of thinking behind that suggestion is pretty poor. Anywat, this thread is getting way off the original subject and other readers will be bored of it by now, but if I ever see a 'High Hedges Bill - does it work and should broadleaf trees be included?' thread started I will be in there cos I have lots more ideas on the subject.

I get the feeling that if the stem had been in compression i.e was being pushed back to the butt by bent branches in the crown, the severing could have thrown the rootplate back down and brought the butt back with it until it slid off the dart cut. Could have been nasty. I think I would have got the severing over with first as simply and as close to the rootplate as possible. After that, dart cut by all means as long as you aint going to have to winch the butt back ever.