daltontrees

Agree with Treesnatcher, no need to sneak about, just ask if it is OK to check with the Council. If he won't let you I would be concerned about his motives but would still do as instructed with a note of where and when I suggested he checked for TPOs.

This one's in Tentsmuir Forest in Fife, pictured last September. I think I know what it is but never formally ID'd it.

Extra advice, if the felling is to go ahead bring your sharpest chain, and a spare one. Yew of any decent age is hard hard stuff. Valuable too...

Described as 'Lot de Sauvetage' I think that means rescue kit. Looks nice and organised and compact if you had to carry all your (dry) climbing kit a fair distance for a one-off job but it doesn't look like it would last a typical week's work.

Superb! I nearly wet myself.

Haven't found a really good fungi book yet. The one that really explains it all though is Fungal Decay Strategies... I can't remember full title. Will check for you. But it's pretty heavy duty, Mattheck does a lightweight version of it. I used to try and learn what each fungus looked like and what it did, then I read aforementioned books and realised it is more powerful to understand the ways that trees are infected and weakened and killed by fungi in general, then learn (backed up by observations) how the main fungal species fit in to those 'strategies'. Each to their own though. I like to build from the bottom, and I love threads like this because it is an opportunity to research, top up, share knowledge and to benefit mtually from someone else's observations. One doesn't come across hardcore Xylaria polymorpha every day...

Clinet may be a nice guy, hence my comment about insusrers being the b***ards. Don't pm the photos, it's all about sharing experience, knowledge and opinions, stick 'em on here.

I'd agree witht he gist of advice so far, no foreseeability no liability. But it's still your tree whether on the ground or up in nthe air, you should dispose of it or if the neighbours do they should offer it to you before keeping it or chucking it. Not all insurers will pay for fallen tree disposal on policy holders land, only for damage caused by it. Equally there is no rule for whether a policy covers damage or removal on neighbouring land. Check the policy small print! Insurers are quick to take premia and slow to pay out on claims. They're very good at it. Trees in law are different from anything else. They might be a bit like cars, handbrakes etc but they are treated differently to mechanical and other manmade things due to their characteristics.

Fair enough, it has hte benefits of spliced eyes and the economy of DIY loops. I have a new stock of the latter but will give the fisherman's a go when next I get some cord in.

I have had a look at Strouts, Mattheck, Phillips etc. notnhing is said about the mode of decay or the pathogenic vigour of X.p. I looked at 'Diseases of Trees and Shrubs' Sinclair et al, an american book which is incredibly thorough. They say that' X. polymorpha is a proven pathogen only of apple. They go on to list species on which they can be found on the butt, including A. saccharinum but not A. pseudoplatanus. Evidence is restricted to USA and Canada. The mode of attack is given in great detail, I can send it if required but it does not say what kind of decay (white, brown, soft) is caused except what is described as an off-white decay of wood beneath a black sheath. I would be suggesting to the client that although there is no widely published evidence of pathogenesis from X. polymorpha on A. pseudoplatanus, its presence suggests that wood has been killed or made vulnerable by other pathogens and that its near-surface activity can only be complementing the internal weakening of wood by other pathogens and interfering with vascular flows to accelerate the demise. I would then add that I am not being paid to give a definitive professional view so don't sue me if the tree blows over but you may wish to keep a close eye on it to assess vigour and vitaility (lots of silhouette photos this winter to compare with some next winter). Or pay to get someone else to blame if it goes wrong or to do intrusive investigation. Or reduce knowing that this will accelerate the demise of the whole tree. Or cut losses and fell and replant. So, having leafed through my library I would say there is not much said definitively about X. p that helps you. Unless anyone else knows something? You sound like the sort who wants to be helpful but again I would suggest the more helpful you are the more it will be construed as expertise that an owner might erroneously rely on. The building insurer, trying to duck out of a claim arising from a catastrophe, might come looking for someone like you to blame. It might count for little that you weren't paid for advice, it is an existing client which could only make the construction of an implied duty of care easier. Gloomy I know but I am just being careful. ASnd if the tree does get felled, any chance of some pics of the cut stump? Sinclair has ifo that might make the extent of the X. p damage identifiable. Again I can post that info if you want.

As I came across X. polymorpha for teh first time last year, I can't claim any expertise. And I guess you are just asking about polymorpha rahter than other xylaria such as the very common hypoxolon? Anyway, if it is only saprobic, the question might be not what effect it is having on loss of tensile strength but what's killing the wood and what effect is that having on strength? Is it acting more quickly than Xylaria? Based purely on book knowledge I would be surprised and interested to hear of X. polymorpha is capable on its own of hollowing in an anaerobic heartwood/ripewood environment. And if something more aggressive is doing that to your Sycamore, would it not chemically exclude other fungi, such that it couldn't act as a catalyst in the strict chemical sense? For it to catalyse it would need to precede of coincide with the advance of another decay mechanism. Sorry, that's probably not what you meant by catalyst. Whatever you meant, I wonder if your clients think the Sycamore is going to buck the trend and cure itself. In my experience things, having reached a point of being a identifieable problem, only ever get worse. Then it is a matter of when the quantified extent of the decay makes the loss of strength an unacceptable risk to the occupiers. Over to the Mathecks of this world to answer that one...

Is it one of the Perseas?

I was wondering where RobArb was. Now he's back I've got no chance of getting there first. I would have got that Thujopsis, but I know it as Hiba. Absolutely gorgeous foliage in real life.

Your post has been read over 60 times, but I can see why people have been reluctant to reply, it being your first post and all that, loads of people come on the forum, ask for the same advice that others have asked for loads of times and are never heard from again. I did what you are contemplating doing, didn't get any chances to start with anyone so I started my own business and am now doing very well. But it has been hard. You will have to really want to get into tree work because doing the course is the easy bit you will need determination to chase work and persuade people to give you a chance, Market is full of cheapo gardeners/landscapers/tinks that are undercutting tree surgeons, so bread-and-butter work is not there to be taking on newbies who aren't super-keen.

Dunno, it is glossy enough for Magnolia but the leaves are way too big and broad. Might it be a Ficus?

Even if you get those several tonnes of muck moved very soon, they might need mouth-to-mouth resucitation. Quality topsoil, by the way. They'll make fine fossils. .

I have given up on the Mimosa thing (for now anyway). One more.

Orgel's Second Rule! Never heard it before but I love it already. What would H. sapiens be like if it had been designed by a committee of H sapiens instead of evolution?

Definitely two gobs creating a triangle pointing inthe direction of fell, then as you do the back cut and get closer to teh hinge going there is less and less chance of a twist in the stem jamming the saw. Magic! Wouldn't have tried to do it on the tree in the video, yoyu would have to be just about under the stem to get the gobs in! I think I might have done the Dadio dart much further back towards the butt, degraded or not and with 2 wedges in the top to stop pinching. I had to titter at the 20 second boast, what do you have to jump out of the truck, start the saw while running to the tree, cut it and run back to the truck to press the buzzer and wina prize all within 1 minute? I would have spent a good few minutes sussing out the lean, tension and compression and whatnot so 10 seconds saved on the cut would be trivial, wouldn't it. Aye, you're a long time dead...

I like my loops set solid, but I never thought of just tying fishermans on the ends, don't they work loose during the day? And if they don't, are they not hard to untie at the end of the day when they have been loaded for 8 hours?

Heavy epicormics on lime are the bane of my life, I am surveyig alot of them just now, some of them look like proverbial burst couches. It is tempting to instruct epi removal and resurvey, but I reckon that whether the tree needed to put out the epi or not, by the time it has it adjusts its vascular flows in and around it and that unnecessary removal is a bad idea. I usually poke around with a torch and secateurs and give the butresses and stem a whack with the mallet until I am satisfied that the tree is Ok until next routine inspection. Only if I am not satisfied will I instruct removal and resurvey. Epicormics have the benefit of keeping vandals, firestarters and strimmers away from the tree. DEsparate cases I remove epicormics myself with a hedgecutter and chainsaw and tidy up off bigger wounds with silky. I don't think there's a right answer because the health of the tree is ironically less important to the client than being able to say it is healthy. A bit of a Catch 22.

FAbulous, Mr HCR. Isn't it wonderfoul that when there is a question to be answered someone somewhere has done all the right experiments and someone somewhere else has spotted it and can produce a copy of the results for Arbtalkers at the drop of a hat!

Thing is, I don't actually know what it is I just posted it for a bit of fun. But this Mimosa thing came up recently ina real live ident enquiry on Arbtalk. Mimosa is a scientific name of a Genus, a member of the family Fabaceae (legumes). Acacia is the scientific name of a Genus, also a member of the Fabaceae family, but some of its members are known commonly as mimosa, many are known as wattles. So I don't know if it's a Mimosa mimosa or an Acacia mimosa. I just saw the subpinnate leaves and thought 'mimosa/wattle/acacia", took a few snaps and went back to the apartment.

Meant to add, it is uideirectional and can't be tied in the middle of a rope like a prusik can. The closer to the spliced eye you are the easier it is to do the 3 wraps in the 2nd 3rd and 4th pictures. Sorry about quality of pics, they are fresh from the living room floor with a wet bit of rope that's in from the truck tonight to get dried. Here it is, set. Try it, you'll never go back to a prusik again. A wee tip, when tying youyr future prusik loops for use with a Schwabian, use a bit of cord that's about 10cm shorter than your usual.

The much maligned prisik still has a lot going for it but you don't want it binding during an assessment. We all use a Schwabian. I messed about with klemheist for a while because I got fed up with prusik sticking, bt I couldn't justify going over to the swabian because I thought it would need a fancy wee short bit of rope with two spliced eyes. Then I realised it can be done with a simple double fishermans rusik loop, costing about £2. See attached photos. We had a competition at work, can tie one of these knots and set it in 15 seconds. Miles better than prusik.