daltontrees

I knew his name, that was all, isolated bit of trivia. But you could be right, way back in those days medicine was developed wilth less concern for the human guinea pigs.

Felix Hoffman

The calcualtions are correct but be careful. Shigo says 0.1% is 'trapped' by plants. You then use the terms 'captured', 'utilised' and 'used'. Perhaps Shigo meant 'stored' but the otehr words you use could mean that and lesser interceptions such as warmth that is given out again as part of a daily cycle or as kinetic energy of released oxygen dioxide and heat energy of transpired water vapour. Then it gets all very complicated. Photosynthesis (storage of energy) is acelerated by warmth, so plants use solar energy indirectly too. What would be really interesting is to know how much energy is stored in plants as wood. Shigo concludes his bit on energy and mass by saying tha thte trapping of energy by trees is "the major benefit of trees to our living world". Much as I hate to disagree with 'the man', it is worth a mention (and referreing back to the fundamental chemistry of photosynthesis and respiration) that - 6 x water + 6 x carbon dioxide = monosaccharide (e.g. glucose) + 6 x Oxygen 6CO2 + 6H20 = C6H12O6 +6O2 That oxygen is not just a major benefit, it is essential to all animal life. Looking at trees and being warmed by firewood are benefits to life, but rank a little below breathing. Let's hear it for trees! Plants give, everything else just takes.

Cracking picture, beautiful really. Thanks for posting it.

That's the most recent example, yes. I don't think a High Court decision would really box off the question, it woul really need to be Court of Appeal or House of Lords to issue a codifying type of decision for public policy reasons. No-one is liley to take it that far for a triviality. The law is supposedly settled on this ussue but it is the one area of tree law that comes up again and again because t seems counter-intuitive. But tree encroachments are different from any others, it is the tree that encroaches slowly, creating a structure on another's property, yet to oblige a tree owner to ensure it never encroaches would be a ridiculous imposition by society, one that would be unneccessary for 99.9% of urban trees. So I suspect the law will remain that as far as branches are concerned the tree owner doesn't have to do anything until he is asked to and even then need do nothing until there is material harm to enjoyment. That might be damage, it might be loss of light, it might be loss of views but the courts might chuck it out if it's de minimis (trivial). With ensuing irrecoverable legal fees. Even if a civil action succeeds, will the court order the branches to be removed by the tree owner, or will it just award damages? And in between, would it award the costs already incurred by a neighbour for cutting back the nuisance? A clear judgement would be lovely.

Fair enough paul, I know you know the difference and for the average contractor wanting to stay in the right there is little actual difference between notifying the Council in writing ina CA and applying for consent in writing ina TPO. So at this point I have to split my attitude on this into Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. The gentle doctor in me says, OK I will continue patiently pointing out as others often do on Arbtalk to those less well versed but eager to learn that there is a subtle but occasionally very important difference between the two processes - after all I get much from Arbtalk from experienced and learned people, so I should give back without bitterness. Mr. Hyde meantime wants to shout ' oh FFS, if you are new to this have a look at the Government website, your local Council website or spend 10 seconds doing a search here on Arbtalk or even just google it and any of these options will give a clear and frank explanation of the difference...', the subtext being '... you lazy git, make an effort'. Time and other people's laziness has obviously made me cynical, and I apologise. But if someone on t'internet wants a fish it is hard to know whether he wants to be given one or to be taught to fish. I will try to be less snippy, knowing that I will continue occasionally to fail. I put it down to sleep deprivation, my seemingly perennial companion.

This has been debated. The encroachment needs to be substantial to the point of being actionable at-law before the exemption applies, and the exemption does not allow cutting back to the boundary, just enough cutting back as is necessary to remove the (actionable) nuisance.

I thought the wording was perfect ('allow the notified works to proceed'). As GP hints at, it is tiresome to see the misunderstanding about 'consent' being needed in CAs being perpetuated and having to be clarified again and again and again on Arbtalk.

And hybridisation is a continuous phenomenon, with succesful natural hybrids best suited to local situations changing the local genetic balance. Eventually after a few generations these may lose the ability to back-cross with their progenitors, and that combined with even minor genetic mutations along the way is the essence of a new subspecies or even a new species. For species taking decades to reach sexual maturity, this will be slow, but the likes of willow and birch hybridise freely and are sexually mature in no time.

My randonm thoughts... For the raised floor area to be caused by a tree root, the root would have to have passed under or throught the kitchen substructure/foundation and then have put on annual increments for a good number of years. That means a healthy root that is getting all it needs, particularly water. So what would it be doing there otherwise? Passing through to somewhere else? You seem to have ruled that out. If it terminates under the kitchen floor it must be getting a steady supply of water. This could be ground water or pipe leakage. If it's the latter, removal of the leakage should arrest the problem. If it's not a solid floor, I can't see how a tree rot could be to blame. A twisted joist wouldn't even produce such localised swelling, you would see it over a larger area. But if you don't even know if it's a solid floor, the first and only thing to do is find that out. If it is, then it's quite a small area that could be cut out after examining and recording the parttern of cracks around the bump. A heavy solid floor slab won't lift locally, nor will a thin reinfoirced one. So the offending area might be a thin unreinforced slab that could be opened up with a bolster an hammer. Whatever's there will reveal itself. A tree root would probably need to be in almost direct contact with the underside of the slab. If I found a root I'd take a sample but I'd be tempted to inject some amount of systemic poison and if this is done at cambial level rather than right into the wood it should kill the root without carrying too much into the above-ground parts of the tree. If it's a leak, that will need to be addressed or the problem could recur and may be doiing other unseen damage. Another thought - protimeters are pretty good at checking moisture levels in concrete. Under vinyl will be a very distorted reading, so the whole floor would need to be stripped and left to air-dry well ventilated for a summer week before any meaningful readings could be taken. A protimeter will only give relative readings unlike the fairly absolute readings they give in wood.

Yes, but I was thinking of solid particles in the air.

That appears to be the right answer, I found myself in a situation yesterday in Edinburgh while surveying trees when a few neighbours came out to make sure the trees weren't getting chopped down and someone asked whether trees are good for an area. I bet they wished they hadn't asked, but among other things I mentioned was the volume of air trees filter and how they turn tiny particles into bigger clumps that get washed into the soil. It was good to share the understanding.

Hurrah, we agree! I have had horrible situations between neighbours where one has refused access with teh stated intention of making the job more difficult and more expensive for the other. The police got involved and an ASBO was issued. Finally, my daughter is right now insisting that I put a pink icon in this message so here it is

I'm all for education, every day is a school day here on Arbtalk. I can't say that my postings are any more right than other folks', most of the time, but there is a lot of rubbish talked and things cited as facts by people on Arbtalk but they are factually incorrect or don't reflect the true state of the law. Some of them are backed up by stubborn attitides, and at that point objectivity of perspective disappears and it just becomes vindictive. I think that all you can say about what's on Arbtalk is generally well-intended and based in some understanding of the law but it isn't entirely reliable and for sure isn't a substitute for structured learning through an authoritative source. Personally I can't easily stand by and see erroneous information passed off as correct. I think where the great strength of arbtalk lies is in gving a collective overview of the pragmatic approach that can be taken day-to-day in tree work. That doesn't mean it's 'right', but commercially we all have to cut corners or make compromises and more generally have to get on with things without stopping to take legal advice every time a twig might fall into a neighbour's garden. I expect the reason why there are not court precedents covering trivial encroachments and trespasses is that the courts do not concern themselves with them (de minimus non curat juris) and quite right too. Ordinary behaviour will always rely on ordinary ethics and attitudes towards other people, and the law only gets involved when the consequences of unreasonable behaviour are significant. So reliance on what is presented as acceptable on Arbtalk could lead someone into a situation where they are legally and technically in the wrong but the consequences have got to a scale that results in them being on the wrong end of a court decision. Not too late to un-learn the wrong version of the law, but it won't be a defence to say that someone on Arbtalk said it was OK however nice his watch and shoes were. I have no comment on your LA saga, I do work for LA's and I see both sides of the story. It probably merits a separate posting.

I don't know the species, but when cherries in the UK do this it is (in my direct experience only) because the stem has been grafted onto native rootstock, particularly Prunus avium. especially so on japanese flowering cherries but the big specimens are either sargentii on avium or ornamental vaireties of avium on native avium. One such example from Edinburgh last month. No small children for scale unfortunately...

It doesn't mattrer how many times thios issue comes up on Arbtalk, there are always new interpretations of the law and the question never gets answered. The origonal poist wasn't even a question, just an unattributed 'quote'. Meantime Dowsons Law seems fine insofar as deciding if the land owner who receives involuntarily fruit or prunings is a theif or not. But it says nothing about whether a tree owner, who might enter his airspace to prune an overhanging branch can chuck it down onto the poor man's lawn then go around and collect it, is in the wrong. Or whether he should cut it in small enough pieces that he can drag it back through the tree onto his own land. You can talk about common law and Mynors and adrmiralty law and whatever Lemmon precedents you want to, but in the end a court if asked to will look at what is reasonable. Or more immediately if someone chucked their prunings onto my garden instead of recovering them through the tree, and then wandered around nochalantly to collect them from my garden, I know who the bobbies would side with in the ensuing ugly altercation. Lazy! Inconsiderate. Rude! Unnecessary. Intrusive. Getting close to what the law would call 'unreasonable'?

Who the heck is Dave Dowson?

I think it's called inverted commas. Unless you mean some other two-fingered motion you might make to a neighbour?

See recent thread by Tom D, no-one over here knows what an arborist is, so they aint going to be especially impressed if you are a certified one. Also, ISA is not really 'International'. The UK chapter has just been dissolved.

Which? Subbies or lapsed pollards?

OK, checking the suspect figure about pollution filtering for a tree taking up 50,000 cu.m of air. The most polluted cities in the world have 100g/m3 of pollutants. That's 5,000kg of pollutants being filtered. 5 tonnes. A day? So here's the follow-up question. If the tree was a cooker-hood, the filter would be bunged up within a few hours. If the tree absorbed 5kg of pollutants a day, it would put on 1.8 tonnes of weight extra every year, and would probably collapse. But it doesn't. where does that weight go? I am taking the 50,000 cu.m. at face value.

Yes, but don't let it slow you down from posting daily. Us followers can do the double-checking. It might all stick in the memory better if it is read critically.

4 things You forgot garden centre sales.

I meant ot add, on Monday I dismantled a Norway Maple 17m high, it had a very very dodgy compression fork at a historic pollard point, but I swung a quarter of the crown off it . when we got the tree on the deck, I dissected the fork and while there was definitely a discontinuity of the wood across the fork I could see from the shape of the rings that the tree had compensated for the weakness in the most effective way. It's in the woodpile but I'll try and fish it out for a photo. Piin t is' it looked bad from the outside from the ground, but the more than compensated.

Sound answer, Gary. I wouldn't blink before getting up there. If it's a dismantle, get the spikes on and a swedish strop, spike up and strip it, leavign a few stubs to stop a whoopeee sling anchor sliding down, worst case scenario would eb to ratchet strap then brace a pair of weak co-dominant stems together at 1/2 height, then dismantle as normal. as Gary says, trees have probably withstood a lot and by the time you have the tops rigged off there's no force you could put on them by rigging that could make them fail before you get the whole lot down. A god risk assessment leave the final call to the climber who goes up as far as a weak-looking union. If the climber is experienced, qualified and sensible, it's then quite appropriately his call. When I see weak pollard unions from the ground I am naturally cautious, they look like text-book hazards, but when you see them up close from a harness you generally realise that King Kong could fight off a squadron of aircraft from them and the unions wouldn't be troubled. So, standard climber-knows-best RA clause. Otherwise, go for it, if you don't someone else will.