Sylvia

Thanks - the Beech was there a good few years before the house - I didn't realise heave was a problem of shrinkable clay and not just any soil - we're on limestone - no sign of clay - so hope that means there's not a prob. Can't dig down far because the old tree roots are so dense so I hope they'll keep the soil held together.

Last Easter we had to remove a large Beech growing between retaining walls in our garden - no sign of any give in the walls so far after some good downpours but does heave occur within days/weeks of rain if it's going to happen - or is heave more to do with freeze/thaw - ie won't know if the walls will hold until after a decent freeze?

post mortem

There's a beauty near me in a wood about to be sold for houses - the developer's tree surveyor says "Typical of the species the tree has a number of large areas of bud proliferation galls to its stem which overtime will die thus allowing the underlying cells to become invaded by wood rotting fungi" Mind you wherever he looks he sees doom.

Why would you ring bark rather than just get on and fell them?

http://www.villagedevelopments.com/RunScript.asp?page=113&AR=AR&Article_ID=41&ap=NewsArticleDetail.asp&p=ASP\~Pg113.asp "Village Developments' managing director Nigel Greenhalgh said: "Our good name has been dragged through the mud and the council taxpayers are now significantly worse off. "Although the order was served at the addresses of the registered owners of the land, the judge ruled it should have also been served at the same time on Village Developments, rather than by recorded delivery post. The site is owned by Oxted Residential Ltd, of which Mr Greenhalgh is a director and shareholder ............................ In response to the ring-barking accusations, he has said: "Our proposals include plans for planting far more trees than we cut down."

How would the arboriculturalist justify ring-barking like that - is it ever usual /non-nefarious practice?

OK - Thinking about it - maybe 4ft max.

Thanks for great insights - I'll be able to ask better questions/more understanding when I'm getting quotes - I guessed what logs cost to buy retail is no guide because so much work goes into getting them into a state where we can burn them - I've wanted a logburner for a while after staying in a gite in the Pyrenees - I swear you could get 10 foot logs in it - massive - this looks like a bit of a silver lining if the old beech has to come down but I try to see the other person's point of view. My only acquaintance with logsplitters was in Last Tango in Halifax on the telly - a farmer committed suicide with one ??????

If replanting is a condition when felling a TPO tree is the replacement tree automatically then a TPO tree? in perpetuity? Can you safely replant the same species near the same spot if the predecessor succumbed to a fungus? Will a T.O. impose the replanting condition if the location is a crazy place to plant a tree? - The original TPO tree was there before all this stuff was built/excavated around it. Couldn't happen now

What I don't really get is whether the arborist's quote takes into account him/her also getting the value if any of the timber - eg arborist fells tree - gets timber worth say £50 [no idea] so quote to customer is £50 less than it will be if I want to keep the timber - is that how it works? Or is a felled tree more or less without any monetary value? If you had the choice you wouldn't remove the timber?

If I have to get a quote for felling a large beech - [waiting for T.O. decision ] - I'd like some of it as logs to sit and season - ie tree comes down - aborist chops it in situ on garden to be stacked by us later/.......over next year....... - logging stops if/when space runs out - arborist removes ?brash/rest - will that be a less attractive/longer job for the arborist and fewer logs to flog?= higher quote price for me - or is it a better deal for an arborist not to have to truck away all wood and will that be cheaper for me? Is there any point getting 3 quotes? PS T.O. says I should ask to see arborist insurance certs before accepting a quote - are they something arborists carry around when quoting on jobs?

I'm sorry I should have answered - the tree's on a sort of promontory above a steep single track road which runs past our garden from the bottom of the village to the top- it's high up, fairly exposed, looking out over the village; it's growing [not my choosing] in what amounts to a wide stone box of 10 foot high retaining walls - depth unknown because I'm not sure how deep the solid rock starts - the tree leans to the east - to my untrained eye/not sure if trees fall with the lean/the fungus is on the eastern side/can't be sure of the height: whichever way it fell it would probably hit the roof of one of 3 houses or fall onto the road/popular pedestrian route below- probably complete with schoolchildren or ramblers or me....

Looks as though it's got to come down - definitely Kretsch/ustulina. Fed up about losing a lovely beech. Life-changing for the fungus as well.

This looks like Ustulina D. ? Is it a goner?

Hope you won't mind me butting in from a different angle - can't resist asking about BAP/LBAP listing - it seems to have made no diff to planning/marketing brief for wooded council land up for sale near us - not mentioned anywhere in sale docs - officials I've asked seem to dismiss anything less than SSSI /ASNW/PAWS. About proving ASNW/PAWS - continuously wooded since 1600 - how to .......not many maps/plans in 1600? Local indicator plants not enough proof? NPPF looks like protection for ancient woodland and veteran trees but weasels out with "unless you really have to" get-out clause?

No thorns though .................I looked for thorns because I thought it was blackthorn/sloe.

- possibly cherry plum/myrobalan ? - so can look forward to cherry pies?

Love this- out now - what is it?

Nearby LA-owned wooded grounds of an old house, designated brownfield and being marketed for residential development, appears on DEFRA magic map as Deciduous Woodland BAP Priority Habitat. Just wondering if the BAP designation gives the trees better protection .....can a BAP woodland be brownfield for planning/development purposes?

Thank you for that advice which I will follow. I have no experience of acting to protect trees but straws in the wind show us the council will show much more flexibility than previously.

I'm very worried about this happening to the nearby woodland garden of a big old house owned by the local council designated brownfield for residential development and being actively marketed again now. There was a very "protective" [as we saw it] tree survey done about 10 years ago by the local council as part of the marketing brief then - numbered discs appeared on trees. Then for the next marketing a new survey done about 3 years on from that one but now for a prospective developer was much less optimistic - a lot of trees seemed now to be either dead, dying or of no amenity value particularly in the flat areas near the road where it would be easiest to build. I rang the council today - i spoke to the Landscape Dept - I asked if an ordinary citizen - ie me - could put a TPO on the whole woodland - he didn't laugh -? well trained - anyway he asked me to put the request in an email and send it to the Tree Officer - is there any point?

might help/for background? Drowning in money: the untold story of the crazy public spending that makes flooding inevitable | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian "One day a government consultant was walking over their fields during a rainstorm. He noticed something that fascinated him. The water flashing off the land suddenly disappeared when it reached the belts of trees the farmers had planted. This prompted a major research programme, which produced the following astonishing results: water sinks into the soil under trees at 67 times the rate at which it sinks into the soil under grass. The roots of the trees provide channels down which the water flows, deep into the ground. The soil there becomes a sponge, a reservoir which sucks up water and then releases it slowly. In the pastures, by contrast, the small sharp hooves of the sheep puddle the ground, making it almost impermeable, a hard pan off which the rain gushes."

Thanks - I've been reduced to reading my insurance policy - if a fallen tree causes damage to my property the cost of removing the fallen tree is covered - no quibbling in the docs about who owns the tree .......but if there's no damage to my property the cost of tree removal is excluded. I assume the same goes for neighbours' insurance. So pray any falling tree hits surrounding walls? My real worry is that it might fall on somebody -we appealed against the TPO because of the position of the tree on a bank above a popular walk - do TPOs take safety/targets into account ?

thanks - no work was ever recommended - another TPOd one on the other side of the drive was removed because of Meripilus a while back - I dread finding that fungus on this one - never seen any sign of it.