daltontrees

One of my brighter ideas.

It's a poor layout by the builders. Lamp post right up through the tree. No light reaching pavement. Tiny grass area for rooting. Roots are already bouncing off the kerb and both driveways. Of all the cherries in the street this one is by far the most vigorous. I am speculating it is because the light helps growth at night and keeps leaf on later into year.

I did an awkward reduction today on a Tibetan cherry in the pouring rain. I don't think it would have been possible without using the lamp post as a top anchor. Actually couldn't have asked for better. First time for everything

And free advice, obviously.

"Pointlessly measured"? How utterly tragic to read all that we know about the benefits of trees, about the proportionality of risk reduction measures, the importance of habitats and the avoidance of needless tree damage and customer expense swept aside by his phrase. The point is that it is measured. From a few photos you, I an everybody else don't know enough to say whether the tree will last another 1 year, 10 years, 100 years. So what's 'sensible' about taking it down, based on very little information? Does the slight imbalance offend the eye? I'll be even more to the point. Why take it down? And those are not rhetorical questions. Please explain.

It was what is known as a rhetorical question. Because the answer is 'obviously', it suggests it would withstand a climb.

Has it stood up to the last storm? Do you think it could stand to have someone's body weight in it for a few hours in good weather long enough to reduce it by the first 100 kg? Different matter if you're going to shock-load it.

There's just one question, and that is what/who will be hit in the weather conditins that would cause it to fall in the direction of lean. Any instinct to fell it without this being considered is probably motivated by wanting firewood or paid work. It looks to be going slowly. Has it stood up to several recent blasts? A height reduction might allow it to carry on for a few decades. Bulge at the back should have a matching dip at the front, otherwise it might just be adaptive growth. Or both. No-one can say based in these photos.

Walnut is high up my list of species that don't recover from pruning wounds. If the cause is butchery the treatment is to hope.

Doesn't look like Daldinia to me. I've never seen Daldinia on lime either and never on a tree tha wasn't dead already or as good as.

Seems a pretty good match. So if it's Brazilian Peppertree best prevent it spreading seeds or the neighbours will not be happy. Dammit now I've got to go off and see if it needs a pollinating partner.

Yes that's the same one I was looking at.

I had coincidentally just homed in on Brazilian Peppertree.

To be honest I don't know. Florida is in hardiness zones 9 and 10 whereas most of UK is 8, so it's possible your plants are somethings that nobody here has ever seen growing outdoors in the UK. Especially if they're native to US. Hopefully someone else will be able to ID them.

Yes purtugese laurel always alternate, always serrated margin and always long petioles. Definitely neither are PL.

I'm pretty sure neither of these are portugese laurel. Don't know yet what they are.

I had this very issue a few years ago. Planning enforcement officer turned up with cliched clipboard. We were getting the rear of the house roof reslated, the roofer had left spare scaffolding on the front lawn, this was obvoiusly too much for a local curtain twitcher who had seen my 2.5 tonner on the drive most evenings and had heard the occasional chainsaw round the back, put 2 and 2 together and got about 5 million. I brought the planner in to the house, offered him a cuppa, showed him the wood burning stove, explained it ate about 5 tonnes a year, took him out the back and showed him the woodstore and the chopping block, showed him the 12 x 8 store where I kept my gear. Explained the only cutting on site was done for personal use. I'd swear he ticked a box on the clipboard, but we agreed (well, he didn't disagree) that it was some complainant nearby with f&*% all else to do with their time but make spurious complaints, he never came back, I never heard anything more. I'd say that because he got the honest approach and guided tour he was on my side in the end.

Excellent rant!

Councils may be trying to shun maintenance responsibilities, the standard request to a Council round here to cut anything is basically 'you can cut it as long as it doesn't cost us anything'. In your situation you could ask Highways if it's their trees. If they say no, it doens't prove anything but it is a get-out-of-jail-free card for you. If it says the trees are its, that could be difficult to challenge. I wonder if a contractor could get done for breach of Forestry Act instead of the customer? Same scenario as TPOs and CAs, isn't it? Tree contractors are specialists, they should know to check on behalf of customer. If you think it's difficult, count your blessings you are not up here where we have a whole new Act and significant changes to the 'license' laws. There seems to be Scottish Forestry people out scouring the country for offenders, like so many ring wraiths. Or some curtain twitcher calls them and they're tapping you on the shoulder before you've got the choke off.

Nah! Pop.

Perhaps you are trying to establish a rule from an example, but from all I know it doesn't work that way. The vesting arises from that whihc is maintained as public. Verges may be important to Highways if they contain services, comprise visibility splays, have lighting columns, lots of different reasons. The legal rule is clear, but its application extent will always depend on circumstances. I'm in Scotland and officially we have Roads, not Highways. We too have the same rule but this has shown to be a little vague in its application and I recall it has gone to court a few times. It always helps to have an obvious delineation like a fence or a line or a wall or a hedge or a ditch, but there isn't always one. In the OP's case it looked like shrubs with several distinct trees. I found I couldn't conclude anything from it.

Looks a lot like Inonotus dryadaeus (or is it Pseudoinonotus?)

The exemptions are clear in the legislation. 'To prevent danger'. The streetview pics suggest the trees were not dead, but that wold have been a valid reason not because a 'dead' exemption exists (it doesn't) but because a dead tree is not a tree. Diseased is only an issue if it is creating danger that needs to be prevented or, in the case of Dutch Elm Disease, if more than half the crown is dead.

It's not that simple. Verges and tree on them usually vest in the Highways Authority, regardless of who owns or owned the land beneath. This does not need to be shown on title deeds as it is a blanket statutory vesting. Mynor's book devotes 11 pages to this one issue. Maybe that gives an idea of the challenging nature of the issue? The bit you cite from Highways appears to be a particular situation of boundary trees, not verge trees.

I'm not out to persuade, without the facts all us humble onlookers can do is use it as an opportunity ot refine understandings of the rules and regulations. Maybe the trees were in a garden when they were chopped, although the evidence doesn't support it. The wall does look new, or at least recently cleaned. What we can definitely agree on is that Councils just make stuff up, and aren't good at it either.