arbmark

yea the nights are getting colder

tactfully put:lol:

isnt this what everyone who leaves the army does and i heard you get everything you need to set up your own business, or maybe thats just a rumour! But in answer to your question, if you can take a massive drop in salary and are prepared to fill your sarnis with hedge clippings and scrumping off the odd plum tree you get to prune for pudding, welcome. You'll have to start at or near the bottom though, like anything. Honestly you'll make as much money as a gardener without an admin care in the world. But if youre dead into it, arb is much more fun.

ah buxus i should have known you were enjoying grasping that large stem!

someone asked me the difference the other day and before i could say well..., the cheeky wotsit said about £5 an hour. i guess some joes find arborist a bit poncey. they know where they are with tree surgeon. My vote: tree surgeon does the surgery, pruning etc. so what about grundies? i guess they are in arborist says climber to me. arboriculturist - broader knowledge of ecology, disease and management, reporting, more grey hairs:laugh1:

i wouldnt worry too much. if the grass comes out the top of the tubes you can catch it with a bit of spray. The trees roots will still make it out past the competing grass. Clumping grasses are the worst but usuallly they appear out the top of the guards due to their vigour. I wouldnt agree about docks and nettles being the worst, their roots arent as dominating and water demanding as say cocksfoot grass. Losses just mean less thinning later if you have planted pretty close. This spring will be telling if you need to beat up. Dropping herbicide granules in the tubes, right next to or touching the tree? wouldnt be my solution i expect the grass would do a lot less harm to trees and soil.

no 2 is awful unless you remove the chain cover and it pulls small stuff up into the saw and jams the chain. i would choose the first one or make one simlyer, or even better make a large cutting rack with an end to butt the end of the logs up then you so you can cut several in one go. the last one looks tricky to load and the third almost def requires two guys! so i recon 1

I'd find you local agents - Woodlandsdot are marketing to londoners wanting a campsite to themselves. may i suggest a polite modicum of reservation....pigs can make a bit of a mess of a small woodland ecosystem. ok i'm a partypooper. your call. your yummy bacon.

i cant be that sad i LOL'd at that one! Fair comments i blame the owner too.

yea especially the tigers, bad juju. how rare are they now?couldnt tranquilize them in the dark? they got guns but they aint got torches. Pretty sure i could find a grumpy 8ft long tiger with a maglite. They all want to be tommy lee jones. still what did the owner expect? i suppose loss in the wild population would be worse than those never destined to breed and resigned to captivity. If i ruled the world they'd still be out there clearing up the massive human overpopulation problem.:sneaky2: seen this!?!? World Population Clock

well 8m ish - depends on frequency of cuttings

i cant see the use of hazel if its for firewood as its slow to meat up enough for logs. just a few for biodiversity maybe. if you are looking at Forestry commission grants they will advise/steer you. i met a guy in cornwall who's family grow pretty much just eucalyptus and sell large amounts. not sure what species it was - you'll have to research. i think you want a compromise between speed of growth and downright burnability but i like to keep things pretty uk native. Ive planted a matrix of hybrid larch (thinnings for fence posts), oak + ash + cherry (canopy and coppice), norway spruce(few xmas trees) and italian alder as windbreak edge. But then i'm in devon at 200ft, bit coastal, slightly acid. Definately deer fence the lot and rabbit guard. Pollarding rather than coppicing is an option to reduce deer damage in the future and ease ground layer managment. Think about grass control too during establishment. if you are going for coppice stands, final spacing needs to be 8m. A thinning crop might be useful to you but you need to be able to fell them without damaging the coppice you want to keep too much. hence the designing a layout matrix. lots to consider. great project good luck with it

If ash grows well in your area then its got to be near the top of the list. Which trees dominate in the hedgerows, local woodlands especially regrowth ones? The trouble with a mixed stand of species (alhtough ecologically good) can be the different growth rates and competition issues but as has been said you could think of a upper story of standards like oak. and think of it as a legacy for the future If we are talking timescales then you need to think about how soon you want to coppice your first crop. ideally you would coppice the first ime at 7-10ish years to get the stools used to the idea and then you would get your first proper crop 10-20yrs on from that. If you want quicker you need to look at poplars, eucalyptus - fast growers but the faster they grow the poorer the logs. i think there are some reasonable euc species though. Is it for home use or selling? An oak coppice could take 30-40yrs. Dont have any experience of robinia sounds good though

actually i can see that there is a possibility of getting the saw stuck if the tree has the potential to shear and trap it so the dual hinge is a good idea in that respect. in this instance its a good solution but if the two parts werent pretty much destined to fall the same youd have to be able to run even faster! i guess you had to be there man. cheers for posting

some great lateral thinking but i think the use of two fulcrums (if i understand what is happening) and two slightly different arcs would put a lot of shear along the longitudinal split and thats whi i think its comes apart so dramatically. The use of a strap is the simple answer i hadnt thought of:blushing: but i would have thought boring out the middle and working to the back of the tree is the one most would use. is there a reason not to do this? question is after all our 'constructive criticism' would you do it again?! good post - what are you like over 100metres?

thats awful kind of you mr. not sure it will happen as we've just bought a new place. just tucking into some walnuts my neighbour has given me from her son's place in france:drool:

great post hamadryad. Amazing and reassuring how nature can recover after human intellectual arrogance causes colossal damage even if the damage is on a undermining quantum level. I just hope we never take it past the point of no return whatever happens to us. Could we nuke the whole planet to the point that life would have to start again? Probably! Will try and watch that one. But then since the planet will die one day when the sun burns out, mankind going to have to flee the planet and hit the cosmos in search of a new home. I suppose this justifies the dabbling in dangerous technologies maybe. Personally i'd take a few choice species and leave most of mankind behind!

Bonjour tous, i ponderd the move about 5 years ago and was house hunting in the poitou charente area. Gave up when it got too expensive (barns wth 1/4acre were about E100k). always wonder what if. Probably wont happen till i retire Id love to know how you are fairing for work and fitting in with the local arbs where you are. Living the dream still?

Hi folks, Seen a couple of radiata with pitch oozes on the trunks and i'm wondering what constiutes normal oozing. not too hot on pines and their ways. Reckon these are normal in the pictures? - first time uploading hope it works. this tree is a good size 1.2m DBH 20m tall. I havent got a picture of the crown but it is healthy, a few large limbs lost over the years apparently, including the big decaying stub you can see at about chest height. Havent seen any FB's anywhere. knowledge on pine ooze please! and any thoughts on the decaying stub. Havent probed around - its not mine to probe! cheers mark

yea the dunnoii is a pretty rare one. unicornus? not even a cornus?

cornus dunnoii

Thornhayes Nursery near Cullompton. Excellent place. Massive selection of quality trees - a veritable candystore. Use them regularly.

i think the question is are you employed or self-employed? If youre self-employed then it doesent matter a bean, but as an employee if something happened it could be argued that you should have had the specific training to show your compentence had been tried and tested. am i right here?

Gollum thats crazy talk. will look into it. cheers

nice work people! thanks. i cant really consider the fleece as i dont live there and if i left it on then it wouldnt get pollinated, but i suppose i could take it off if the forecast is good for a couple of days when the blossom is good and the insects are flying. but the smudge pot idea that is genius. bit of smoke... radiant heat maybe. Alec that jar of greengage jam (new extra smokey) is looking good...