agg221

OK, several things going on here. Firstly, it has fallen over. This is not a problem. The original Bramley (sown 1809) fell over in 1900 and re-grew from a branch, and is still going strong. Looking at the tree, the photos don't make it entirely clear, but it looks like there is not much in the way of annual extension growth and the centre is getting very bare, which means the branches are probably getting over-extended (which is consistent with your comment on broken branches). The first thing I would do is cut everything down around the root zone. This will also make working on it easier. I wouldn't touch it until late autumn/early winter, when the leaves have yellowed and mostly fallen at the earliest. There is a particular range of airborne spores around at this season which you want to avoid landing on freshly cut surfaces. I would then remove any dead wood, and shorten up anything particularly long. I can't identify any particular cut points from the photos, but in your first picture you can see a point about two thirds of the way up where the branches arch right to left and another set carries on up. I would look at taking out the ones which are heading on up. The ones which arch also look quite dense, so I would look to thin them a little - helps air get through reducing wind resistance and lets light get to the branches so they don't die off. This will all help to reduce leverage on it, making it less likely to blow right out of the ground through twisting, or for new bits to snap off. Coincidentally it will make it easier to pick and manage in future. In your last picture, there is a horizontal branch running right to left, which then turns upwards. At the point where it turns upwards there is a young shoot. This is the kind of thing you want to encourage. For now, you are looking to get a few of these going, which will happen if you head the tops back and let light in. In subsequent years you will be able to thin these out to space them to form new side branches. You want to encourage them to grow at about 45degrees to the vertical, so choose the less vertical ones to leave. If you have to leave some vertical ones because they are well placed, bend them down to the right angle and tie them there with a bit of string (in the growing season they will 'set' to their new angle in about 6wks). This will ultimately allow you to cut right back to your new branch structure, forming a more compact tree which is more stable. To get it growing again, in about March I would stick down a double thickness layer of cardboard all around the root zone, which might be the drip line but having fallen over you will have to guess at this a bit. This will stop it competing with the weeds for water and nutrients. Before I did so I would give it a decent dose of Blood Fish and Bone (or Growmore) so it's a good slow-release balanced fertilizer. I would then mulch over the cardboard with either well rotted compost or chip/bark which had been stacked for a year - if you don't then the cardboard dries out so the rain doesn't soak in as well, and it blows around. Cardboard lets the water through but suppresses the weeds. The worms like the glue so they pull it down, aerating the soil. This means you will have to renew the cardboard from time to time, just don't let the mulch get too thick. The above is likely to give you a lot more years out of it. Alec

The only fundamentally proven proposition: je pense, donc je suis (I think, therefore I am) - Descartes, 1637

I can probably help - oak and sycamore at the moment, and can do them planed both sides. I'll drop you a PM. Alec

What length do you need, and how many (and where actually are you in the north)? Alec

I make that almost exactly 0.75cu.ft (measured off minimum width), so that's £92/cu.ft Maybe I should start planing up a few boards.... Alec

I use subcontractors (not in arb) for delivery of specific parts of larger projects. I obtain a quotation and add a 'handling charge' which effectively covers my time in liaising directly with the customer. It would always be cheaper for the client to use the subcontractor directly as the main contractor - in my case this isn't an issue as part of the role is us undertaking the project management on their behalf (for which we are paid) bringing together a complete set of expertise to deliver the job, which could not be single sourced. The problem you have, as I see it, is that if the whole job could be done by one person/team then if you are adding costs to it you are making it more expensive for the customer to receive the same service, so are likely to be reasonably undercut by someone of equivalent quality. So far as I can see, there are two reasonable approaches. If you see this as a short-term fix during recovery from injury, where the primary aim is to maintain continuity of service and retain reputation, I would look to make your 'on cost' as small as possible. I would look to identify someone local whose range of equipment and quality of work matches your own. I would then suggest an arrangement under which you get what is effectively their standard rate, minus a 'finders fee', so that your charge to the customer is the same as your own would be. This means you will not make very much on the job but it will get you through the short term with a slight drop in income but little 'visual' impact on your business, so you shouldn't affect your customer base. To limit the likelihood of loss of customers, I would visit the site with them in person when they go to quote, then get the quotation directly from them. If you are of the same mindset, and similar companies, although you are competitors there is good potential for this to work - they may need a similar favour in the future, and it gives long-term flexibility for overcoming peaks in either of your workloads. If you are actually looking at something which may be a longer term need as you contemplate growth, I would look to split the job up. E.g. if you offer reductions/removals/stump grinding, I would suggest finding a freelance climber to cover reductions, a freelance stump grinder operator who doesn't climb etc. That way, your division of labour means you are not building a competitor. This is likely to leave you looking at one-man bands and recent start-ups, which increases risk (although they may be able to give you references/photographic portfolios etc). There are several people in this bracket who have advertised their services in the Employment section as being nationally available. By taking this approach (particularly using people who have travelled a fair distance), you limit the potential for competition, since they don't have the capability to take the whole job on. This approach is sustainable indefinitely, but takes more effort, so you would want to make a reasonably rapid assessment as to whether to grow your own company by a head or not. Hope this helps. Alec

Am I correct in reading that the planks are 17" wide and between 3' and 5' long? If so, for reference, at £50/plank this works out at £40-70/cu.ft Apologies if I've mis-read the dimensions. Alec

I've always thought of root pruning when planting as being less about reducing the volume and more about tidying up the damaged ends. It's the equivalent to pruning the top - you could hack off branches and achieve the reduction in volume/length, but if you leave a nice target pruned cut it will tend to heal over more quickly and neatly, leaving it less vulnerable. Alec

Disposable pallets are a good source of stickers on the more 'domestic' scale. The slats can be cut out down the line of the crosswise brace, giving a series of lengths of about 15", each of which can be ripped down to about a 1" width. A pallet yields about 50 stickers. Just be careful not to mix up the thicknesses (or chuck the lot through a thicknesser to standardise). I'm slightly more optimistic than Jonathan on the milling season - I'll start at the end of September, so actually next weekend, and don't anticipate any problems with overly rapid drying. Even if we do get a few warmer days, they will be shorter and the humidity is up. I have to stretch the season a bit due to available daylight hours. I'll leave the oak for a bit though as it surface checks particularly badly, and start with some elm and hopefully plum. Alec

4 and 2 at the moment. If they are enjoying something they will concentrate for hours, but they're not old enough yet that if they take exception at the idea they will still go with it and give it a try. Give it a few years and it looks ideal. Alec

Sailing out on an oyster looks great David - we saw them but didn't realise they weren't all private. Wouldn't work for us with two small children, but ideal without. The tourist boat is OK though, and does mean you can put off at the point. In Norfolk terms it's quite a way from Cromer to Wells, so personally I wouldn't bother going any further along than that - we've never run out of things to see or do in a week from that end. It's a lot easier to go another time and stay somewhere like Old Hunstanton (stunning beach) to visit Holkham, Sandringham, Hunstanton sealife centre and Castle Rising (another really good place to go) etc. 2nd pic is a 22ft dbh oak at Holkham. Alec

We stay in West Runton most years at the moment and sort of do nothing, which seems to be the point of Norfolk somehow. If you need really good quality toys for any small relations then the toy shop in West Runton is great - just off the Cromer/Sheringham road, up towards the station. Second the Poppy line, and a trip into Holt at the far end - 20mins walk from the station or get the vintage bus if it's running. If you do, there is an excellent and very quirky secondhand book shop in the lane between the two main roads and the Christmas shop is quite amusing. Well worth a trip out on a boat to see the seals at Blakeney Point. Temples Boats also land you on the point and you can walk up to the old lifeboat station. Quite atmospheric. If you are over that way it's worth going on to Wells and either French's fish and chips by the quayside, or eating Dutch pancakes on the sailing ship/bar in the harbour. If you are particularly in to magic then Daveport's Magic Kingdom on the edge of North Walsham has a very good show, and another mini-show as you go round, although the museum itself still needs time to develop. Main thing for me about Norfolk is the relaxing pace of the place - it just feels like stepping back to the 1950s. Alec

Exactly. You are looking to help them tick boxes, not necessarily do anything different. You can state that when travelling to site you will review transport options on a regular basis. This will include the use of car-sharing when practical, such as when on-site meetings are called. You will use Google maps to establish the most fuel-efficient route (if you put two locations into Google maps you now get a fuel cost box at the bottom). Don't go overboard, or put ridiculous suggestions down for the sake of writing something. The person who has to review your application probably thinks this policy is as stupid as you do! Alec

Thickness to be taken off when planing varies depending on width and sawing pattern. Quartering takes the least as the boards don't cup, through and through can cup more, so the wider the board, the worse it is. I would say taking 3mm off each side of a 5" board suggests significant cupping, twist or irregular grain. % loss from mill to par depends a bit on thickness - shrinkage is a %, planing is more of an absolute, so 25mm par from through and through sawn 150mm widths needed 32mm starting (20% loss) whilst 3" (75mm) quartered would probably only shrink to 71mm and could be planed at around 68mm (10% loss), but if through and through sawn and significantly cupped on a wide board this could be finished size of 60mm to get it par. The thicker sections are for outdoor use (boat bottom boards, or furniture) so I wouldn't kiln even if I had one. In practice, I air dry everything anyway. I then let it stabilise indoors for a bit before use, if the plan is for it to come in. Yes, it was me you were discussing insulating lime render with - ultimately I plan to use it on the exterior of my whole house once the cement render eventually gets stripped. Alec

I agree with James on not looking to re-saw. It just adds to the drying time. I have squeezed 25mm finished planed all round size out of 32mm milled, but it was very tight. This gives an idea of the 'extra' to leave on when milling. Minimum size for quartering is probably around 2'6" mid-quarter diameter, although if there is a serious taper I would look at the top end instead and say minimum 2'. However, I might not quarter something slightly bigger than that if it was short and I was making 3" slabs or similar. Anything much over 3' would end up quartered as a matter of course as there is not much use for boards that wide so they will be ripped down at some point anyway and it might as well be sooner and make the milling easier. Alec

Entirely agree. Mine is the older 2.4 diesel but again it's the SE (heated seats etc). Comfortable, well designed and really shifts when you want it to. I get around 50mpg on average, and is surprisingly good with a fully loaded (1.8 ton gross) plant trailer on the back, at around 40mpg. Worth noting that they changed the engine around when the 2.0l diesel became available and the later one is apparently not as good. It's about an 07 plate where the change was, so won't be affected within your budget. Alec

I largely agree with James. Green ash/holm oak/macrocarpa - £15/cu.ft, seasoned £20/25/cu.ft. Green oak £20/cu.ft, seasoned £25-30/cu.ft. The above assumes everything to be of construction/joinery grade so you might get lucky and go a bit higher if there is anything exceptionally good for colour or grain (there are a few oak boards that Burrell and I milled which you can find on the pictures of people's milling thread that would be a bit higher, for example). If your long oaks are large diameter, straight and free from significant knots then they would be useful for construction beams, so the price/cu.ft would be significantly higher than you might otherwise get. One thing to note - commercial mills usually supply smaller thicknesses as it is quicker and easier to dry, and meets the general market. There is less demand for thicker material and it takes longer to dry (allow at least six months per inch of thickness) but this means that when someone is looking you are more likely to be able to meet a niche demand. Alec

In theory you will get more for it milled and seasoned than in the round. In the long run, this is true, but unless you are milling to someone's cutting list, you are waiting for the right person to come along and buy from you, which then means they have to know you have timber for sale. This means time and effort, and money, on your part to advertise and handle customers. This is fine if you are happy to do so, but a pain if you aren't - at least you are going into it with your eyes open. For the large oaks, I would track down your local timber framers and see if there is any interest. For the rest, I would plank it at 2" or 3". This will give the widest range of options. For anything over 2'6" I would seriously consider quartersawing to get more stable boards, although short, wide oak might be worth making slabs. If you have the capability, converting it into an end product will make it more saleable as the buyer doesn't have to do anything then. This could be benches/tables from the durable timbers (oak, yew and robinia). So long as you are realistic with your pricing, you will sell it in the end. Oak in particular has a fairly steady demand so I would be least open to low offers and most inclined to mill and store. Ash and macrocarpa are the ones I would look to move on sooner if possible as the demand is lower, so I would take sensible offers. Just my view. Alec Alec

My great aunt (now 104) makes the best cup of tea of anyone I know. She uses PG Tips, the same as me, and is in a hard water area, these days using an electric kettle and teapot, the same as me, and I don't have milk so it's not that. I have watched her do it, and really can't see what she does differently, but somehow she just has the knack. I probably won't get the option of honing my skills for as long as she has though! Alec

They are likely to be a lot more solid and the timber should be pretty sound, so long as there is nothing up the middle which is not visible from the photos. On the milling side, some dimensions would help (length and diameter) as this will determine what kit is needed to do it. The other thing to think about is your 'cutting list'. The thinner the section you are wanting, the more cuts, so the more time milling. Alec

Hi Mark, interesting comment. I wasn't aware of silver leaf in apples - how does it show up and is it as progressive as in plums? What is your visual cue for identifying previous woolly aphid problems? Alec p.s. 'bending' has made a very significant impact on rate of re-frameworking this year.

Japanese anemone. Comes in pink or white. Alec

That's quite a lot of missing bark. I would be looking for the cause, to make sure it doesn't spread, or happen again. It could be rabbits, but I haven't seen them go for a mature tree when there are alternatives. It looks too severe for strimmer damage. It could be canker, although that normally looks 'wet'. Try peeling a piece of bark off from around the edge, and see if it is dead or alive. If it is dead, with a funny sort of sweet smell, it's canker, in which case I would peel off all the dead, looking for the live (green) edge and trim back to the live line all round. You could then apply a suitable fungicide. I would agree with the mulch, although I would probably apply it by cutting the grass as short as possible, then putting down a double layer of cardboard and mulching over that, to avoid disturbing the roots. I would also keep the mulch away from the trunk itself by a couple of inches. If I couldn't establish a cause for the damage, I would probably put a bit of wire mesh round the base of the trunk until I knew what was doing it, to keep animals (e.g. squirrels?) off. I would then look at a reasonable helping of balanced fertiliser (e.g. blood fish and bone or Growmore, depending on your taste) in spring and hope it's OK. The extension growth on the healthy part of the tree is not particularly long if it hasn't been summer pruned, so it could withstand a bit of pruning back this winter if desired, and the fertiliser and mulch would be helpful with this. Finally, if the branch which is suffering does die, don't give up on the tree. Within 3-4yrs it could be re-framed to give a good balance with the remaining main branches - I have done this with some much more bizzarely shaped starting specimens! Alec

Pictures would help. You mention fruit trees and a wooded area. Unless you only want the fruit trees for decorative effect, I would treat these differently. The wooded area will regenerate by competition between the trees. They will be spindly and upright, with the trees around the edges probably leaning. Individually they would blow over, but their collective bulk will keep them upright. Fruit trees are 'designed' (pruned) to get a crop, by getting light and air to the crown. They are spaced further apart so they don't get drawn upwards. Most fruit trees are grafted onto rootstocks. The stock controls the size, the scion controls the variety. Seedlings are likely to grow very vigorously, take a very long time to crop and be really dissapointing when they do. If you want them for reliable fruit, propagation of whatever the locals grow onto stock of the size you want will make for a more productive orchard, unless you want it purely for decoration. There is one exception to the above on fruit trees. In the UK if you go back a very long way in rural areas it used to be common practice to propagate certain fruits, particularly some apples and cherries, from seed. They didn't come true in the sense of being identical, but they had dominant genetic characteristics which tended to come through. This is a bit like growing vegetables of a particular variety from a packet of seed. The plants are not genetically identical but will be similar enough in the ways that matter. It is just possible that this practice has survived where you are but you would need to do some asking around to find out. Alec

Given the overall spec. I would be looking at an 075 or 076. They can be had in working order for around £300 as a powerhead (or significantly less if you are lucky on ebay). If you're lucky they come with a chainbrake. If not, it can be retro-fitted and are available from ebay.de (but check it has the right sort of handle). It will handle the milling without ever struggling or getting tediously slow or bogged down, will do occasional big felling/stumping and although performance is not exciting and power to weight is not good by modern standards it will slog on all day. It will pull a 4ft bar without any effort, and will hold its value. All parts are still available, most of the key ones as OEM or pattern. Alec