daltontrees

Yes but not as clear as if you had answered the rest of the questions. Otherwise, like everyone else will probably conclude, I'd say there seems to be no reason why the tree can't just be removed, if that's what the owner wants.

Bunny ears are what you get if you don't put cuts in below the hinge on leaners. I never thought to give the cuts a special name.

I agree whith others saying that more information is needed. I definitely wouldn't agree with some of the advice you have received here. At best unhelpful, at worst recklessly ill-informed. Is there TPO? Is the tree in a Conservation Area? Has an application or notification been submitted formally asking to be allowed to work on the tree? If so, has it been refused? When? How big is the tree and what species? Were engineering allowances made for its presence in the design and build of the extension? If not, why not? Were they followed? If not why not, and who decided not to? Are there conditions in a consent for the extension relating to the tree? Where in the country is it? Those are just some of the preliminary questions.

I'm sworn to th BK range of varnishes which come in range of fluorescent luminous colours, creating a useful hi-viz effect that lets you know where the ends of your arms are at all times. Saved many a finger, it has.

My first reaction to this thread was that it would diminish the art form, but if it's for selling nicknacks to leisure shoppers in garden centres, then frankly it doesn't matter what tools or machines are used. What I think would be really naff would be programming a computer to deliberately carve things to look like they have been done with a chainsaw. That's close to cheating customers. I have been most impresed by chainsaw carving when it has been in-situ on a stump or stem, ideally using the natural form and grain imaginatively. I don't think anything will replace that, these seem to be one-offs and peple seem to be happy to pay a premium for their unique artistic worth. Mass produced mobile pieces and wooden boxes might be Ford Fiestas, but the car analogy cannot be used for the one-off in-situ sculpture. If anything it's like getting a personally customised car built for you in your home using your own materials, and quite rightly that will be expensive and special. Meantime if anyone can part consumers from their cash down the garden centre, as far as I am concerned computer-made wooden things can sit on display right alongside the garden gnomes and plastic planters.

That was my standby question...

Taking it as read that fungal pathogens in the same sector of a tree willl normally ward off infections by other fungi, what would be interesting would be whether australe and resinaceum are so genetically similar that can have some form of co-existence in the same host.

Are you correlating the pronounced buttressing to reaction to the fungal infection?

I had never heard of that one, and it does look like the pictures, but quoting from Wikipedia (which is not always right) "The only known population, found in 1991, consists of 200–250 plants growing on the Monti Iblei area, in Buccheri, in southeast Sicily near Syracuse." One of the rarest trees in the world. Wouldn't it be lovely of there was an outbreak in Yorkshire?

I would have said Zelkova carpinifolia, especially the roughness of the leaves. I recall Nothofagus obliqua lobes are more rounded and irregular. But I don't know for sure.

It's not clear if you're tasking about the qualifications of the head of the team or the tree surveyors. If it's the head of the team, there's no particular reason why they should have the qualifications necessary to do tree surveys.

Collins Guide again, to give balanced view. Orchard apple leaves "oblong, large (to 12cm), with small irregular teeth; dark, rather matt and variably crumpled." That last bit I find to be useful as a first hint to it being Malus domestica. Pear leaves are leathery by comparison, and as someone mentioned have a pointy tip.

Whatever you decide, probably wise to precee it with "Notify the Council that I intend to ...." Apart from the severing of ivy, which may make more difference to light anad windfirmness than any pruning. Don't know how you could advise on risk until you do that anyway and wait for it to die back or remove it.

Yellow card.

Yes it is.

Close-up

I never give up! This picture of pears (so there is no doubt) has a leaf top right showing what I suspect is meant by 'minutely-rounded'. To be honest it's not a characteristic I would use to identify pear. Agreed apple tends to have a broken margin, but what I believe is called 'serrated'.

I have nio view on this, just was saying what Collins says.

Collins Guide says common pear leaf is 'minutely round-toothed'. As in the OP's picture.

I think everyone else has given up on this thread. In the situation you describe, I owuld expect the blame to be apportioned between the neighbour and his contractor. The apportionment would bdepend on what the neighbour had instructed the contractor to do. If he said "excavate to the bounbdary, no matter what you come across, and don't tell me how it went" he would probably take all the blame. If he said "excavate, no matter what you come across, and tell me afterwards how it went" then the neighbour would learn of the roots and should warn the tree owner. If he said "excavate to the boundary" the contractor would be expected to find the roots and stop, or at least have a duty to warn of the impending tree issues. There's no such thing as a lay contractor. Not knowing about trees can not be a valid excuse for negligence, a reasonable land owner would employ someone competent and follow their advice, and would be expected to take professional advice about a nearby tree whether he knows about trees or not. That's my view anyway.

Now here's a thing...

If the first of those two points is meant to be a summary of my perspective, then I think you have misunderstood me a little. Of course the encroached party has a duty of care. It is how he exercises it that matters. Firstly recognising that abatement will create a hazard. Secondly considering whtehr there is any less mischevious way he can gain enjoyment of his land. Thirdly bringing that to the attention of the tree owner. Fourthly allowing a generous period of time for the tree owner to remove the potential risk. This may not be as you suggest absolute absolution, but I would rahter have this duscussion before the event and I am not persuaded that the law can be interpreted any other way, because there are firmer authorities that refute any notion that roots create themselves a right to occupy encroached land than there are that suggest that considerate self-abatement should be constrained by fears of prosecution for damaging an encroaching tree. My abater is deviod of mischief and is very different from the careless driver.

Quite my point, the intransigent tree owner holds all the cards, and that is inequitable since it is he who has allowed the encroachment without title.

Nor do I, although there was a time when the courts confused the two N words, up at least to late 60s. Some modern texts including Mynors caution the reader of the outdated terminology, but care is still needed in the reading.

Yes I understand the scenario. But pasage of time would only make it harder to prove the root removal was the cause of failure. I'm saying that that's irrelevant to the situation where the encroached party says to the tree owner "I told you I would cut the roots. I told you it would probably cause your tree to fall over onto my property. But there is no other way of me using my land than by removing roots. You've had 3 months to do something about it. You haven't. So now I'm going to cut the roots. If the tree then lands on my property it will be your fault." Has he no other remedy. Like any situation where a neighbouring tree is risky, he cannot apply to the courts for a specific implement to force the tree owner to remove the tree. Must he apply to the courts instead to get a specific implement to force the neighbour to remove the encroaching roots? Is that the appropriate remedy? And thinking about that, the courts might only intercede if the encroachment is de facto actionable nuisance. It sets up an ill-defined scenario where an encroached party must at law tolerate tree roots unless they are such a nusance as to be actionable. That's not what Lemmon v Webb says. And Davey only adds that nuisance is actionable of there is damage. Mynors summarises nuisance as the existence of a state of affairs on one piece of land that materially interferes with the enjoyment of another piece of land. If 'actionable' and material interference are synonymous in this sense, then the poor encroached party contemplating the ordinary use of his own land to grow vegetables must raise a civil action to have the courts order the tree owner to remove the roots of the tree first. And if the tree owner fails to do so, he will be in contempt of court and could go to jail for it. But no-one can order him to remove the tree even if it is inevitable that harm or damage to the encroached party will arise. Proof of negligence might be prima facie and easy, but that will be no comfort to the vegetable growing man in the right. This is not a hypothetical situation, I have had a case like this where the tree owner has stubbornly refused to allow any way forward for the encroached party. In the end the feud was so bitter that the encroached party moved house, while the tree owner had a restraining order imposed on him. And for me cutting back the branches of a 25 metre high beech tree without being allowed access to the stem of the tree for climbing was challenging under a torrent of threats and abuse from the tree owner. Maybe that experience is why I would like an answer to this scenario.