daltontrees

Ailanthus altissima, tree of heaven. An absolute weed in Basel at the southern tip of Germany.

Almost as unimportant as me saying that the saying is "the business" and that any corruption of that for comic effect is OK by me.

I only ever saw Aurora once, in Selkirk. It's young bark was distinctly pink, as was some of the leaf in the variegated leaf margins. I wasn't 100% sure of the ID, but it was near enough for the purpose of the survey and I didn't investigate further.

If it were me the sequence of elements would be pretty much as I have already set out. Generalities of shrinkable clays. Effects on structures if shrinkage or expansion. How trees (or removal of them) affect soil moisture levels. How adequate foundation design can counter these. Then the facts. The tree, the distance, the conventional assumptions about water uptake of this tree. Then the unknowns. Foundation type and depth. Presence or absence of clay soils. Construction date and tree age. Then the recommendation, which would start with finding out if shrinkable clays are present locally. Finding out if records exist of foundation type and depth. And only then, possibly an excavation adjacent to the building to ascertain soil type and foundation type and depth and to a lesser extent an idea of root distribution. And only then would it be possible to say with any confidence whther the risk of heave is acceptable. It is true there may never be a straight answer, but that's because it is impossible to see things uder the ground. An excavation is only a small random sample. But what I don't know is whether if this advice was ignored, and the owner had the tree removed, and then experienced damaging heave of the building, and then claimed off insurance (possibly denying having taken advice), would the insurer pay out? By rights the answer should be no. But as I say I don't know, becasue I have no experience of this scenario. It may even depend on the wording of the insurance policy. I can't say how much this would cost, I know what I would charge up here, but I'm not about to disclose my consultancy rates on a public forum.

The BS is not the law, it is guuidance. You haven't said whether you are trying to get planning permission. If you are, the Council will probably want strict compliance with BS5837. If so, and permission was refused because of 'incursion' and no justification is given for the incursion, then an appeal would probably fail. 5837 says - The default position should be that structures are located outside the RPAs of trees to be retained. However, where there is an overriding justification for construction within the RPA, technical solutions might be available that prevent damage to the tree. If operations within the RPA are proposed, the project arboriculturist should demonstrate that the tree(s) can remain viable and that the area lost to encroachment can be compensated for elsewhere, contiguous with its RPA, and propose a series of mitigation measures to improve the soil environment that is used by the tree for growth. There is no magic number. I hope that answers the question, although I was hesitant at first for rewarding your use of the ghastly and insistent phrase 'hit me back'. Next time it should at least be hit me back please.

Definitely! I have a picture from yesterday of a similar size tree that was felled urgently on my advice, and I saw the stump yesterday, quite alarming. If I get it off the camera today I'll post it. Your tree may have secondary Armillaria, but the K. deusta alone is grounds for serious concern if there is anything or anyone that would eb hurt or damaged if the tree could snap at the base (which is what happens with K. deusta). So Paul's general guidance about 'targets' is appropriate. Don't panic, just look around and think what would be there in a strong wind.

MAtt and Chris used to work together at SAC. Matt's now out in his own too, based in Livingstone but I bumped into him in Cumbernauld recently doing training, the Wildlife Trust has a huge number of non native trees there and it is systematically getting rid of them and seems happy to let these be used for training.

Yeah, the bark is more like Maackia amurense. Could be that.

I reckon you're in with a shout there, although the bark isn't quite right . The tree formerly known as Sophora is now Styphnolobium (japonicum). The bark looks like one of the straight Sophoras. I'm going to struggle to remember that name. Stiff - no - low - bee - ....um. I just noticed that the Collins Tree Guide spells this wrong, it has Stryphnolobium. " While there may be a case for naming the Pagoda Tree Styphnolobium japonicum, there is still no general acceptance of the generic name, probably because of its clumsiness."

Try Chris Simpson at Informed Tree Services, based in Hamilton which might be a bit handier. He put me through my CS30/31, great teacher. And try and get some experience as a brash-rat too. Some folks think they can do a course and then be straight up a tree doing all the fun stuff. It's not like that, and you will learn a lot about the industry just helping out on the ground and watching and listening.

Wherabouts are you? There might be soemone nearer to hand. I met Chris White once and he gave me a free Stihl baseball cap, otherwise I would have forgotten him completely. Seemed very affable and his trainees were looking happy.

I don't have an accountant and already the whole thing is feeling a bit too complicated for the scale of my business. I've looked into capital allowances, buildings are not eligible. I might be abe to put depreciation through on it though. And repairs, although I very much hope there won't be any repairs needed for a long time.

Aye well you'll need something meaner than them to look after you when you come up north. We are living on the set of Trainspotting up here. Joking, of course.

Thanks again. Problem is I only need 6 or 8. I love the idea of the octoposts, and I miss creosote. But you have to buy the 90x90s in bundles of 99. Local sawmill closed 5 years ago, now a Dobbies garden centre :-(

Any pointers on this please? I have built an office in the garden, will be used only for the business. Built from scratch by me, just got a pile of receipts for concrete, timber, windows, electrical fittings, plasterboard etc. Around about £3k but if I was honest about the time spent on it by me even at a day rate of £150 it's more like £6k all-in. Question is, how can I approach this for tax? Do I claim the receipted costs as capital allowances (heard of them but don't know what they are really), do I pay myself to do the work and charge it to the company (i.e. me)? Or pay for the whole thing personally and rent it to the business and claim the rent as a business cost? It's not a lot of money but I'd rather not pay tax on it if there is a legit way not to.

Two dogs, 120kg? What the f*&% are they?

Do you reckon? I've got to buld the posts into the brickwork, and I really don't have a feel for how long wood would last in that situation. I'm just worried that if I get it wrong I will have no way of replacing wooden posts. I tried to get larch for a fencing job 8 years ago, and the loc fencing supplier just looked at me blankly, then said he couldn't giarantee what wood his posts were. I gave up because luckily I had just felled a load of beautifully straight Lawsons for a client and used that after soaking its feet in thinned bitumen paint for a few weeks.

The current BS only refers to % as 30% being the absolute max for thinning, which should not involve any reduction in width or height. I don't have the older BS. One of the problems of % for reduction is that it should be a % of leaf or bud, which never ever equals the % width or height. I believe the older BS did refer to % volume reductions but tehse were impossible to monitor and I can see why their use is discouraged. Except that customers like them becasue they can relate to the effects on their light, but in situations like that the physiology of the tree is a secondary or even tertiary consideration.

These look great. Just checked. Kedel would be £220 + £100 (yes!) delivery for 8 posts. These ones by fascias.com are £138 + £18 delivery. Basically half the price. I can see why, they're hollow with steel reinforcement but the Kedel are solid and weigh 15kg each. My shoulders remember them well. The solid plastic are a pig to cut as they grab the saw and will not be cut straight. I'll probably go for these fascias.com ones. You're probably off the hook, Gary, not having to lug 120kg of plastic up to Scotland. But thanks for the offer.

That coud work out quite nicely, thanks. Gotta go and collect daughter now but wil investigate the Hahn thing later. Ta.

Ta, I'll check, it's a 5 hour round trip to Aberdeen though. I know of them, but last time I checked they only did big orders. I'll check again.

Not correct. It's not a question of law but of best practice, and reductions should be specified according to BS3998, whatever the purpose. e.g. "Reduce height by 3 metres, to leave 8 metres." I am hearing some COuncils are very lax about this but some are very strict. They're probabl;y right to be strict, the idea being they need to eb able to check afterwards and the only measurable thing will be remainign height, spread etc.

I am just about to buld a garden wall that needs to have fence posts built into it, so I am thinking of using plastic wood fence posts as they will never rot. Has anybody used them? Any tips? Also, I did a biggish job last year making raised beds out of plastic wood, but it was a real hassle getting the materials. I ordered from Kedel and they got the order badly wrong and it took 2 months for delivery. The delivery costs to Glasgow were fairly hefty (£250) but worth it for a large order. But this time I am just looking for 5 or 6 no. 6' x 3" x 3" or 4" x 4", and the delivery cost will still be £120. Does anyone know of anyone more local to central Scotland that has plastic wood to buy and collect off-the-shelf? I can't wait months for a delivery. Any help appreciated.

I wsa recently involved in a shrinkable clay tree case, pretty rare in Scotland, and although the generalites are complex enough when you have to apply them to real live cases it reminded me that it is very very diffcult to reach firm recommendations that stop short of excavating and exposing most of the foundations (at which point you may as well underpin while you're in there). There are never so many caveats in my other reports. It strikes me that the OP's situation is as clear cut as it coud be that heave might occur if shrinkable clays are present. A tree that's probably more than a hundred years old, so it could be expected to have dried out any clays present thoroughly before the buiding appeared. A building that looks to me a good bit younger than the tree. A building well within the zone of influence of a tree. A moderate water demand species that's maybe near it's full size. Looks like a bungalow, so quite a light structure. The equation would seem to be this. If there are shrinkable clays with the worst kind of plasticity index, and if (taking account of the local climate and any persistent soil moisture defecits) the foundations of the house are in retrospect inadequate by current NJUG standards for that tree at that height and proximity, removal of the tree could cause heave. Heave I agree is rare. But it does happen. Dried out clay will rehydrate, even if it takes years. And the force upwards might be small relative to the forces downwards in subsidence cases, but they could be significant, and if the structure is light it could be lifted. But none of that is the original point. Should someone asked to remove a tree warn the owner? Morally, yes. Legally? Not so clear. But having asked for views on it on a public forum, in this case the answer has to be yes. Courts seem willing to take the view that tree contractors should have the expertise and duty to warn. Removal in 2 phases is to my mind largely pointless. Saying heave is rare and probably not an issue is worse than saying nothing at all. I'd suggest to anyone asked if it's an issue, if you don't know don't advise. Better to say that you know enough to know that you don't know, and cover the situation in an informal communication (verbally with corroboration or in an email) that if in any doubt about the risk of heave the onwer should take specialist advice.

Apologies if I am just being thick, but where has the fungi directory moved to? I've had a look but I feel like someone returning to my old town to find it has been redeveloped and I no longer know my way around.