daltontrees

Nothing to worry about. I surveyed 50 trees today, typical spectrum, of which about 5 were mature Sycamore and 2 of them had flaking bark like this. As long as the bark beneath is intact I can see no cause for alarm, it's probably just a variation betwen individuals, like one person having freckles and another not. It can occasionally be a useful visual indicator of recently abnormal flexure of stems forks or limbs (hinting at underlying hollowing), but more so on Chestnut than Sycamore. I think Mattheck's various pubications hint at this.

Craesus latitarsus. Look it up.

Because the law says so. But that wasn't my point. It was about arithmetic. The age of criminal responsibility only matters if Vespasian's statistic strictly said 'prison'. I repeat, I couldn't give a stuff about the subject matter. Whrn anyone who says 'the facts are .... and therefore ...', it does well to check the facts because without them the 'therefore' means nothing.

Not if you assume none of the women have done time. Take a population of say 100 women and 100 men. 7% are convicted criminals. That's 14 people. Now, if you assume all the women are not convicted, then 14 of the 100 men are. That's 14%. About 20% of the population is under 18 and can't go to prison. So 80 of the males can. 14 have. That's 17.5%. Vespasian had it right on the approach to the arithmetic. I couldn't give a stuff about the subject matter. Thought I was losing it up to that point.

Impossible to tell from that picture. Not even definitely a conifer.

No confusion. They do. Quoting from "Trees: Their Natural History" "As a tree grows it gets to a point where the canopy reaches a maximum size. The tree cannot get taller, owing primarily to water needs (Chapter 6), and the side branches cannot grow longer because they become too expensive to support. So the number of leaves a tree can hold becomes more or less fixed, which means that the tree’s food production also becomes fixed. But each year the tree needs to add a new layer of wood under the bark, and as the tree gets bigger the amount of wood needed to coat the whole tree goes up each year, just like putting together a set of Russian dolls where each new doll on the outside has to be bigger. Moreover, as the tree gets bigger the amount of food needed for running the tree (respiration) increases, rising to two thirds of the sugary income in a mature tree. The tree then becomes like a bank balance where the income (food) is fixed but the outgoings (respiration and new wood) keep rising. The tree compensates for a time by producing narrower and narrower rings of wood but there comes a point where they cannot get any narrower. Something has to give, which usually means the loss of the topmost branches, which are under most water stress. The result is a stag-headed tree, so named for the antler-like dead branches sticking out of the top of the canopy. This is the start of the end because losing branches means fewer leaves and so less new wood, and the beginning of a downward spiral."

Android... yeuch. I was at the seadisde at the weekend and I tried out my new receiver, I got quite a good OTISS reading, it said I was sitting on the dock of the bay. Erm...

I don't think it's a hypothesis, more a debating point. But I'd say many trees would live much longer if we didn't mess them about. They're all individuals, though, with minor genetic variations that sort the weak from the strong, and those that can adapt to changing environments from those that can't. And trees die of old age when they can't maintain themselves by an ever-thinning annual increment. If a naturally occurring compression fork doesn't finish them off first

Agreed on the sentiments, but the thing that kills trees around here is people. With chainsaws. A few of them couldn't spell TPO, nevermind advise on the implications of one.

The Guidance says that When considering an application the authority is advised to: assess the amenity value of the tree or woodland and the likely impact of the proposal on the amenity of the area; consider, in the light of this assessment, whether or not the proposal is justified, having regard to the reasons and additional information put forward in support of it; consider whether any loss or damage is likely to arise if consent is refused or granted subject to conditions; consider whether any requirements apply in regard to protected species; consider other material considerations, including development plan policies where relevant; and ensure that appropriate expertise informs its decision. So I suppose it matters a little what reason has been given for removal. But not much. And one has to bear in mind that removal of a dying tree would give rise to a replanting requirement. Allowing removal in the knowledge that replating will follow would I suspect be a persuasive consideration for a Council. The broad answer is that the Council must and can take a lot of other things into consideration than the reasons given for the application. The term 'material considerations' is used in a relatively narrow sense in Planning law, but if its meaning extends outwith planning law here, it means anything that's relevant and important enough to be important, and could be anything at all that meets that vague test. A prosecution for pre-application damage or destruction of the tree due to root burial would not die with the tree. Quite the opposite, probably. Such a prosecution could be under indictment for 'wilful' damage or destruction. And there would have to be a public interest in prosecuting. If there was a record of poor condition of the tree before burial and if its natural demise was inevitable, and/or the proof of wilfulness is going to be problematic, the Council could do a lot worse than consent and require replanting, because prosecution would be pointless. If you're hinting that the Council's consideration of the application might be swayed by its wariness of capitulating to loss of the tree, it shouldn't be. The damage (if any) caused burial can't be undone. As long as the Council has evidence of condition prior to consenting to removal, prosecution and replanting are two separately pursuable matters. It seems to me the Council shouldn't take into account the threat of prosecution when considering the application. I'd go as far as to say it's not a 'material' consideration. I rather think it's an immaterial one.

For the fungi anoraks out there... I just came across this snippet about Oyster mushrooms, which is new to me and pretty amazing (see last paragraph). https://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/2013/12/the-world-is-your-oyster-mushroom/

Possibly Acer paxii?

Brilliant! Pretty much how it goes. I have a real friend (honest) who yesterday posted a picture of his breakfast. Another sent one of the shower in his B&B. My cousin posted one of her cat's new incontinence matress. Plus a toe-curling pseudo-buddhist morale booster from a friend in Australia, that made me want to smash the screen. And that's just one day of FB. The arbtalk FB page is disgusting, thank goodness it exists because it keeps the dickheads away from the Forum, and it is still possible to have a civilised conversation. Or an uncivilised one with civilised people.

A hedge is a row of trees and/or shrubs. The trees within it are therefore trees, even if they have been managed as part of a hedge. When they lapse, they become even more like trees in a row. The Council has the ability to TPO trees if they are in a Conservation Area. The hedgeness of them is an arbitrary additional description of the group. What will matter to the Council is whether they come under the heading of "important for the amenity of the area" or whatever the exact wording is of the Planning Acts. I'd say that cutting a tree in a hedge in a CA is potentially an offence, escapable only if the trees are not what one would ordinarily describe as trees. Following recent discussion on Arbtalk, if you advise the customer that they're not trees and that no CA notification is needed, and then you cut them, you may be guilty of the offence. Irritating as a LPA stance on this might be, I'd advise that you proceed with caution. Call it humouring the LPA, call it precautionary, call it professionalism, but you ought either to get a confirmation that you don't have to notify, failing which notify. If you're brave, you could skip this if you are satisfied the hedge comprises shrubs. But you described the 60' row as "a large row of tree's / hedge / screen (conifers)". Are they trees, albeit in a hedge format? If so or if in doubt, notify. You may be able to get an approval to manage them over a period of time, with the LPA's written approval.

The hunting and golfing ones are not very accurate or precise, you'd be lucky to get one that's sub-metre accurate. I use a Trupulse, can't remember the model, but it's not the 360 which is mega expensive and incorporates a very precise compass. I get + or - 0.3m. It can be tripod-mounted for really very accurate surveys, as I found recently in dense woods with no GPS signals, I just measured a traverse all the way through it, and closed the traverse at about 0.6m accuracy after 20 sightings. If it's just for crown spreads and height measurement, Leica do a really robust one that's not a sighting rangefinder, but it's got a little daylight-visible screen on top and is about the size of a TV remote. Point at the tree and fire. I used one for a whole winter in Wales in horrendous conditions and it never let me down. BUuilders use these types and they seem to be pretty tough devices. You have to get one ofr outdoor use though, teh wmpy ones that only work indoors will not hack it adn do not work in bright light. But 99% of the time I count paces, for distances up to 30m I can get it within 2%. No good on steep slopes though.

I'm always nice, if a bit firm. I'm genuinely interested to know if there is a source somewhere that Arbs are quoting from. You might have guessed I disagree with it, but I am curious nevertheless to find the motherlode of tree errata.

Inverted commas? What source is that from?

Here you are. The table at the end is especially useful in understanding the overlaps between ancient and veteran trees. DEFINING_AGE_AND_SURVEYING_VETERAN_AND_ANCIENT TREESa.pdf

Clearly you haven't understood. The same amount of rain falling on the car park will be absorbed by exactly the same area of land, just as with your block paviour solution. There can be no argument that it is increasing run-off. Or to put it another way, your block paviour solution is just as pointless as mine. Arguably more so, as you may require a pipe to the nearest ditch.

The ideal self-contained system is to collect the surface run-off into gullys and then feed the gully-outflows into a network of perforated pipes in filtration trenches immediately beneath the car park. That way there is no net increase in water anywhere, it is simply captured above ground and redistributed evenly below ground. The storage capacity if a large network of pipes is huge. But you need to capture all the water, and have gullys, which means kerbs and careful management of levels. I was involved in doing this for a town centre car park, and as I recall there was no feed into the surface water drainage system offsite.

Like this

An article by Dan Neely in 1991 showed that for several species the forst cut will result in more rapid callus an healing over, the second will cause less dicoloration and decay in teh remaining stem woid but the healing will be markedly slower. In both cases I'd try and get closer to the collar.

I'd love to be defence counsel on a case like this. Jules QC: "So, Mr Defendant, at the time you embarked on cutting down the tree, were you aware of the existence of a Tree Preservation Order" Defendant: "No" Jules QC: "Would it be fair to say that you believed there was no TPO?" Defendant :"Yes". Jules QC: "Did you check?" Defendant: "I didn't need to, the customer checked and showed me copies of correspondence with the Council showing that a search had drawn a blank. Plus I had a meeting on site with the Council's Tree Officer, and he told me there was no TPO". Jules QC: "Your Honour, the copies of the correspondence are in the evidence folder as 'Exhibit A'" "Now, Mr Defendant, did you believe him?" Defendant :"He's the Council Tree Officer, I had no reason not to. He should know, shouldn't he?". Jules QC: "Well, that would be for him to say. We may come to that when we examine his evidence. But for now, do you think that you searching the Council's records at the time the customer did so would have turned up any different answer from the one your customer told you and showed you that he got" Defendant: "Eh? No, that's not possible" Jules QC: "Again, we'll come to that in other evidence. And after that and before you cut the tree, did you receive any notification that a TPO had just been made?" Defendant: "No". Jules QC: "And did your customer tell you that he had received any notification fo a new TPO" Defendant: "No". Jules QC: "Thank you. And in conclusion, is there any way that you could have known that there was a TPO?" Defendant: "No... not unless I had got a solicitor to check ...." Jules QC : "And is that something that you or anyone in the industry routinely does?" Defendant: "I've never done it and I don't know anyone who has" Jules QC: "If that's not a requirement, is there any way you could have known there was a TPO?". Defendant: "I did try, but, no" Jules QC: "Thank you for your candid answers. I have no further qestions"

More options than that, like telling the Council you plan to plead innocent, and ask them what public interest they think the Corwm Prosecution will see being served by pursuing a prosecution. It all depends on the truth.

It seems a prima facie case of inabulity to know of the existence of a TPO. You ask the LPA if the is one and they say no. I can't see that the Vale of Glamorgan defence should not apply to you. Strict liabiity offence + no possibility of knowing it would be an offence = no offence.