woodyguy

So is scots pine native when it has been re-introduced hundreds of years later to all of England? What about foxes and red squirrels that have been re-introduced many times ie most are from continental stock. Complex picture.

Pure Inspiration. Thanks for sharing.

Its usually used to mean arrived naturally at the end of the ice age eg beech is fine but English elm isn't. And certainly not introduced by the Romans eg sweet chestnut, or 16th century eg sycamore. Presumably at some point you'd need to reset the clock but with man moving everything about, the meaning of native will get diluted from here on.

To reply to getting tax back "HMRC will assess each of your 'contracts' individually. If you are a PAYE employee on some then there won't be refund just because you deem yourself to be SE". Yes there will. You will do a tax return at the end of the year, detailing the tax you have paid on PAYE and this will essentially be removed from your SE liability. I am half and half employed and self employed. I don't pay any more tax because of the PAYE half. Now NI is another matter!

No harm done and best to strike soon. I've got a three year old one that is 15 foot tall. Yours may only be 30-40 years old and will probably get twice that size eventually. Act now!!

So apologies for hilarity. It is a fairly young Eucalyptus, probably gunnii (the common one, not a silk purse one) and it grows very quickly and very large. It also tends to be poorly rooted and have a habit of falling over when large. I'd get a local arborist to have a look at it to to advise on removing it.

If you work for somebody 5-6 days per week every week then you are not self employed. End of story, you have no choice.

Now I'm really confused. You seem to have a large Eucalyptus Gunnii there, which is a pretty unsuitable tree to grow near to a house, gutters or not. Where did the idea of an oak tree come from? or am I missing something?

I assume you mean a chinese cork oak? Can you post a picture as I've never actually seen one?

Interesting reply. As I said I've been doing a direct comparison over a large area and found 4mm to be a lot quicker than 2.4mm using a portek head on grass and brambles. Obviously your experience is different but just wondered. Thanks for reply.

Like you i've been experimenting with heads and lines. I've settled on the Portek head and basically bigger the line the better. With 4mm line you can have a good length and hence big diameter strimming circle. Once you're hitting blackthorn and other tough stuff then lines break pretty quickly and then using a metal mulching head has a massive advantage. Can't see that I will ever wish to use the 2mm over the 4mm as seems slower and breaks quicker. Why do others use 2mm line?

They set food policy (or rather food companies set the political agenda) but the change towards cheap food is fixed in our psyche so anything that added to the price of food eg tax on refined carbs, tax on saturated fats, producer pays for costs of obesity etc is never going to happen. The first action of the coalition government was to water down food enforcement legislation. We haven't even got the traffic lights warnings on food enforced.

Sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick. As a society we are addicted to cheap food. Veg in the shops at less than I can grow it for and milk cheaper than water. We then get the farming methods required to deliver that. Can't see the politicians increasing the price of food anytime soon though. Also can't see any reason to ban roundup when like most herbicides, it's pretty harmless. But pesticides can be a different matter.

Sorry to disagree but where are you getting this junk?? For decades the ‘natural’ health industry has been touting thousands of vitamin supplements. The truth is that most vitamins in supplements are made or processed with petroleum derivatives or hydrogenated sugars [1-5]. Even though they are often called natural, most non-food vitamins are isolated substances which are crystalline in structure [1]. Vitamins naturally in food are not crystalline and never isolated. Vitamins found in any real food are chemically and structurally different from those commonly found in ‘natural vitamin’ formulas. Since they are different, naturopaths should consider non-food vitamins as vitamin analogues (imitations) and not actually vitamins. Your body can't tell the difference between naturally occurring and chemically synthesised vitamins. They take part in biochemical pathways in your body. Folic acid in cabbage is the same as folic acid in the pills given to pregnant women to prevent spina bifida. End of story.

If banned could you not use live traps. I've massively reduced my numbers that way. They do a kamikaze for cashew nuts!

It's perfectly designed to help us small wood owners get on with management but without bureaucracy whilst meaning that large wood owners, however many parcels they own, have to do the paper work. Seems one of the more enlightened bits of legislation to me!!

Although the narrow chain on the 211 can be good, the main problem I find is that it blunts much more quickly than 325 or 3/8. But the 211 is a lot better than the 171/181.

The second one is silver birch. Downy birch has fine serrations but all fairly even. Silver has big serrations with small serrations upon them, if you get what I mean. First one looks like a poplar but not aspen. Too many to call by leaf.

For seeds, buy a pack of John Innes type seed compost, garden soil isn't great. Sow them in pots (butter/marg tubs with holes in bottom are fine). Then water and keep outside where frost can get to them. Leave til late spring when hopefully a good few will have grown. Then empty out pot and tease apart before growing on in 11cm or bigger pots with compost mixed with soil. Pulling out the odd one isn't ideal.

Excellent saw and exactly the sort of thing I use mine for. It will handle more than that and with a 14inch bar, I use it for thinning birch and easily cut wood up to 10inches. Great little saw.

Seed is freely available for natives and very cheap on ebay for more exotics. Good luck with cuttings for the list you give. Dead easy from seed though. I'm currently growing 140 species/varieties of trees and most are from seed. Willow/poplar/pterocarya are very easy from cuttings though.

Alec, have to agree with you about the difference between scientifically tested resistance and the "lucky" tree that survives a few years longer than its peers. I'm still reluctant to shell out a few hundred pounds for trees that may well not survive. But happy to grow Wych elm at low initial cost in the hope that some will survive. Also growing American, chinese and Siberian elm from seed at minimal cost.

Don't forget that "English" Elm isn't a native tree!!

The problem with planting the named varieties with supposed resistance, is that they're very pricey and you wont know if you've wasted your money for many years. Personally in your situation, I'd buy a packet of Chinese elm seed and grow from seed. Lovely tree, very resistant and cheap as chips.

Got a 20inch sugi light pro on my 362 and I love it. Not tried the cannon though.