daltontrees

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Zep bend is the one. You'll never untie a loaded fishermans. Reef OK but not designed to be heavily loaded.

Names aren't latin, they are latinised, that is to say the gender and case of the species must match the genus and must use the recognised latin style of suffixes. An equivalent in french would be 'Le chat noir' and 'La chatte noire'. In this way, 'rubra' can be the correct match for some genus' but 'rubrum' for others. The genus name can be derived from any language. So can the species name, but if it's plainly nicked from someone's name, like Mr. Lamarck, the latinised grammatically correct species name has to be lamarckii, as in Amelanchier l. There's also the written rule in english that not many people bother with but wouldn't get past review in published articles, that foreign words should either be underlined or italicised (or within inverted commas), as I have done above. The word 'italicies' itself is derived from its root word 'Italy', a nod to the romans. Just conventions. The good thing about using latin and latinising is that no-one speaks latin, so it is not subject to accent, dialect or corruption.

I was going to guess at Populus x jackii, but it turns out that that is a synonym for 'Aurora'.

There's X Malosorbus florentina (Syn Malus florentina), Hybrid of wood apple (Malus sylvestris) and wild service tree (Sorbus torminalis). A small rounded tree from southern Europe with 1cm red fruits.

This is a messy business. Rule one, never ask for an 'estimate', always ask for a 'quote'. The quote is for a specific service, and the consultant cannot demand haigher payment unless additional work has arisen and he has got your approval to do the extra work for an agreed additional fee. Rule two, always specify outputs from consultancy work that are waht you need and which then belong to you, so that you can ditch a dodgy conslutlant and bring in a new one who can pick up where the old one left off. So much for hindsight. Instead, with your estimate you are more at common law odds with the consultant. But I think it is for him to justify why the price has increased AND why an additional quote (or estimate) awas not provided by him prior to him embarking on the additional work. Any half decent consultant will always do a wee bit extra for a client without whinging about extra costs. It happens on almost every job, so much so that it's almost standard in pricing to allow for a few extra hours to be spent at no extra fee. There are situations where jobs grow arms and legs nad no-one could have seen it coming, and you have to ask the client to increase the fee, or else you will be working for nothing and will be poorly motivated to prioritise his work and go the extra yard for him. Good clients understand that. I'd say you shouldn't just stump up, as the consultant to justify the increase and explain why he didn't get your prior clearance to proceed on the basis of an agreed higher cost. An estimate is a guess when there are a lot of unknowns, but for an AMS on a known site he had himself surveyed, a doubling is well beyond what would be considered possible and reasonable. And if you are also not happy with the service he provided, it would be reasonable to hold the price as disputed.

It's a Poplar, likely a hybrid of Balsam Poplar. The infection is the fungal Melampsora rust. Affects Poplar in summer but overwinters on a separate host, usually Larch. Bugger all you can do about it, except perhaps clearing away fallen leaves ofther during summer, and getting rid of lower stem epicormics.

Reduced fee, good for client relationships. Home early, get some admin stuff done for a couple of found hours.

One of those pictures is the 'Elegans' type which is not very representative of C. japonica. Some of the small or shrubby varieties have more dense foliage. Have a look at 'Compacta'. There's very few species that have incurved leaves. Cryptomeria virtually has the market cornered, but also look at Athrotaxus selaginoides.

A consultant might be able to advise that removal is not necessary if all that is wrong is damage to neighbour's patio. For local clients I charge £95 for a visit, verbal advice and a confirmatory letter. Felling costs saved. Tree saved. Relations with neighbour saved. Sleepless nights saved. Insurance premia saved.

Well, you've been dealing with the wrong sort of consultants. When I am advising clients I make it clear it's my job to tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, and that I have no financial interest in whether there is paid tree work coming out of it or not. I alos tell them they are paying to transfer the risk to me and my insurers and that they should sue me if I get it wrong. It's not in teh slightest self-serving. Or should the OP come on to the internet and accept the gung-ho advice of people who have never seen the tree, don't know local soil and climate conditins and (on the evidence) don't understand some of the fundamantals of shrinkable clays and certainly won't be coming forward to accept blame for uninformed actions? Or should they accept the advice of the tree surgeon who advised to take the tree down in one go because staged removal would somehow generate more roots? Said tree surgeon could have meant well but he also stood to get a lucrative job out of it. What side of caution would a commercially-interested contractor giving out free unwritten advice fall? I'm just going to add, asking about heave on a public website could amount to foreknowledge. Cost of advice compared with cost of getting it wrong (with or without insurance)? Can be money well spent. To be frank, I don't think any of us can tell enough about the circumstances to know for sure if independent advice should be bought. But this notion of self-serving consultants is I think an unhelpful distraction from choosing the right thing to do.

All the circumstances suggest there's little risk of heave. i.e. no history of trees on the site, recent construction that should have adhered to NHBC guidelines, deep foundations already noted. There's a big difference between patio slabs being lifted by shallow roots and heave/subsidence by shrinkage or swelling of deep clays.

Keeping but cyclically reducing the tree is an option, and could in the right circumstances be defensible in a claim for damages form adjacent owner.

The issue being discussed was heave. In areas of shrinkable clays long-standing trees can result in shrunk clays and if they are built-on in dehydrated state and then trees are removed the clays will swell and cause heave of the ground and damage to buildings. Some suggest that the damaging effects on heave to buildings can be reduced by removing the trees gradually, but the obvious truth is that the overall swelling and heave will occur eventually whether done gradually or all in one go, and gradual removal is not goijng to change that. If anything, it would be worse to remove in stages.

I meant to say, the issue seems to be nothing to do with shrinkability of clays.

The tree will try and replace shoots to be in equilibrium with existing roots. Won't produce more roots. The situation with pops is different, Poplar reproduces asexually for the most part and throwing up suckers is an automatic reaction to felling or heavy pruning. The staged reduction thing has been discredited, as you suggest.

Isn't there a danger that offices over the RPA will deprive the tree roots of water?

Well yes Jon it very much depends, but mostly on whether there is a genuine desire to protect trees or whether the AMS was a shelf-filling box-ticking requirement by the Council. Someone involved in the project has to have budget and clout. If it's the Council that wants one and nobody else does, conditions have to be waterproof, the TO has to be seen on the site regularly and have the enforcement officer primed and willing to act. The most important thing becomes the monitoring reporting arrangements, so that the TO can ease off when things are underway and rely on monitor reporting. If it's the site owner that wants one, the AMS has to be realistic and has to be enforceable against the contractor. If the contractor has it imposed on him, it will not go well, so it is more than useful to involve the contractor in the drafting. This is not always easy, as the contractor has to have been appointed at least provisionally. Best to involve a contractor when he has preferred bidder status, and programming is underway, otherwise there will be uncontrolled cost implications. Finally, if you find it's the contractor that wants the AMS, stop taking pills or snorting or smoking whatever you're on, because you've drifted off into fantasy land.

Short answer - we bother because we're paid to. The Arb is not the tree police and if Council/client/contractor aren't taking is seriously that's their problem. AMSs are mostly a waste of time. I write them as contract documents, so the client or council only has to append them to a legally enforceable build contract. If they're not precise enough to be enforceable, they really are pointless.

No, the 'fruits' in the original post are actually unopened flower buds.

Gorgeous looking

Maybe European Puss Moth?

Horrible tp work on, my first one snapped from under me fortunately I had a good top anchor.

Ah yes, I reacted quite strongly because it was the OP's first post and I hoped he might get some genuine considered advice. I occasionally look at Arbtalk Facebook and it's quite shocking how crass and unhelpul, not to mention downright illegal the advice there is. They all think they they are sooo funny. It's like the difference between the Times and the Sun if you're looking for actual news. I take your point, I have had a few situations where advantage of lockdown has been taken by doing all sorts of illegal tree works under the defence of plausible deniability, knowing the Council isn't out and about spotting things and would find it hard to prove when and by whom the deeds had been done.

It has been discussed before and I believe it was shown that if the Council authorises work that wasn't applied for, it's not a consent. There is a mechanism for this type of authorisation but I haven't the Acts to hand. I think it is implicit that the Council requires some trees to stay. If it's not a consent, then there doesn't need to be a mechanism to revoke it, the Council might just have to remove its authorisation. It does seem likely that taking advantage of the possible loophole and felling the hornbeams now would consolidate the protection on the sycamores. If the trees are in multiple ownership, someone's going to get pissed off. If they are in shared ownership, the party standing to come out of it worst could veto the work.