Gavint

Hi there, in the hope that some random person on the forum might have the info I need: If anyone is a self-employed arborist in Ontario, what are you billing yourselves out at? Is hiring subcontractors to help move projects along from time to time a done thing over there? I'm crunching the numbers to see if it makes sense to move back home. I'd want to go self-employed immediately, and would need to be able to charge a pretty high rate in order to afford a reasonable place to live there. Thanks!

Hi folks, just got mine up and running last month. I had a local advertising guy do it up for me, along with business cards, flyers and vehicle signage. Check it out: Roots-Stuttgart.de. I'm pretty pleased with it.

Hey guys, Who's got an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist ticket out there? I'm working through the European Tree Technician program, which has a direct transfer agreement with the ISA at that level. I'm looking at going home to Ontario in a couple of years, and want to know where that designation will put me in the industry position-wise, and if it could justify the move back. Is this more of a consultant/customer service/management level designation? How well recognised is it, particularly in North America? Cheers, Gavin

Hi All, had an interesting job yesterday. We had to fell two Sycamores (Planetree Maples for us North Americans) for the City that were severely damaged by sooty bark disease, Crytomeria corticale. Both trees had had a risk assessment done on them last summer, and there were no signs of the disease at that point. In the last few months, both trees experienced a massive amount of dieback, with big chunks of bark flaking off and black fungal spore masses on the underlying wood. The local Tree assessor explained that in a recent trip to Sudtirol in Italy, they have had to remove virtually 100 percent of their Sycamores because of this disease. Now, it's jumped over the Alps and is affecting trees here in southern Germany, just coming over in the last couple of years. It's interesting how fast the disease seems to work. When felling, we all wore respirators or dust masks in addition to the normal safety gear... Got a lot of Darth Vader jokes. Luke...kshhh...Ich bin dein Vater... We ran all of the branches through the chipper, and dropped off the wood at a place to be burned separately, not to be used as firewood. How bad is this thing where you are? How are you guys disposing of the contaminated wood? I wonder about chipping the wood, I guess the major danger is for the guy feeding the machine, the spores would diffuse pretty quickly in the surrounding air to non-dangerous levels. I'd like to know how others are dealing with this problem. I'll upload some photos next week. Cheers, Gavin

Definitely made in Germany, in Waiblingen. I drive past the factory two or three times a week. I've heard that Stihl has had problems with espionage in the past where almost exact knock-off duplicates of their products have come out on the Chinese market BEFORE the real saws were released in Europe.

It's got to do with the set up of that machine, it looks like it takes time, with lots of little adjustments that have to be proofed each time. With a circular saw on bigger lumber, Mark with a set square around, make your cuts, then clean up the middle with a chisel or reciprocating saw. With a bit of practice works really well, and goes quick. With that machine, you've got to clamp your workpiece down, and then clamp that machine onto it, then fiddle about with settings, for each cut. I bet making four cuts and a clean-up in the middle would be as fast or faster, done with tools you already own. If you could get through it with a chopsaw, no contest, way faster that way.

Ditto, The set up for each cut would be a huge time-waster. I could see it for really big pieces of wood, but even those can be done with a circular saw cutting in from four sides, would still be faster than setting that thing up every time.

We plant stuff like that all the time, at all times of the year, with great success. A cherry laurel, yew or thuja hedge can be planted to good immediate effect with the right stock. Find a good nursery in the area that sells b&b hedging plants. Of course, the bigger the plant size and the denser the planting will raise the price. We regularly plant 150cm yews, photinias, thujas as hedges. Smaller sizes (up to 1m) are on 3 per meter spacing, bigger ones on half-meter spacing.

I bought Butin's diseases of forest and park trees and find it an excellent reference, especially coupled with his colour atlas of woody plant diseases. The two books set me back 90 euros together, but they're worth it. Not sure if they come in english though, mine are in German. Check out Krankheiten der Wald- und Parkbaume and Farbatlas Geholzkrankheiten.

Thanks guys, just got my copy of Watson's Trees, looks like a great book. Thanks for the recommendation.

A simple way to do a curved edge is to lay your boards so they extend beyond the edge, mark your curve, then cut it with a sabre saw. Underneath, your rim joist will be a series of small pieces, angled according to their position relative to the curve, attached between your main support joists. You could also notch your edge board, so that it can be bent. Every cut will let in moisture though.. Another option is that you could rip thin, bendable strips put of your decking, stake or clamp you curve profile, then laminate the strips back together with outdoor rated wood glue in the shape you want.

Yep, they're hard slugging. A better way with hand tools is to get both a clam shovel and a 5' long steel,pry bar. You start the hole with a spade, to about 1'deep, then drive the clam shovel down, lifting out bits of dirt. The bar is for bashing stones out to where they can be grabbed with the clam shovel. Also hard slugging, but way faster than with a hand auger. I found that in glacial till soil with lots of stones, it's the only way to do it, even better than with a tractor mounted post holer attachment. The trick is to find the Zen of post hole digging... Ohmmmm.

Surprisingly not, just really tastefully done. From outside looks like a normal house in a new development area of town, with very normal-sized houses for neighbours. He walked by this morning and grumbled a 'guten morgen' at us.

I laid sod at this famous soccer player's house today, his last name is Khedira, plays on the German national team, I was at his place in Fellbach. I never heard of the guy before, soccer just isn't on our radar back home in Canada. My coworkers were all excited though. I also planted vegetables at Rachel McAdams' house in Toronto. I just thought she was a friendly, good-looking blonde, before I was told who she was. I'm not so media-savvy, you see. The best was a local celebrity chef called Vincent Klink, kind of a fat, old, Swabian Jamie Oliver. Nice guy, personally brought us out hot pasta lunches from his restaurant overlooking Stuttgart - delicious - before tearing away in his chef's coat on his vintage Moto Guzzi motorcycle. I got a kick out of telling my mother in law about it, she's been watching the guy for years, she just about keeled over!

If you can dig it out, do that, they come out pretty easily unless they're really old. Go at it with a chainsaw, then a mattock and spade for the roots. If you can get a mini-excavator in there without tearing up the lawn, might be worth considering, but it would have to be an old, big, stubborn hedge to justify the machine. As for herbicide, you can do a stump treatment, where you cut the stems off at.ground level and then immediately spray with 15 percent glyphosate. Really effective in fall, but works during the growing season, too. Might need follow ups to deal with suckers. Problem with leaf spraying woodies with herbicide is that anything that will do the job in a reasonable amount of time is really nasty stuff, think Agent Orange, and should be avoided. Good luck!

Approaching 20 C here today and sunny. Supposed to be warm and dry all week, last week was the same, awesome for working, and I'm already well on my way to developing this year's farmer's tan.

Funny, by the size of the gut on the guy doing the 'pruning', he didn't look like much of a cowboy to me! Fortunately, these trees are in the backyard, and so thankfully not visible from the street. I see it all over the place, though, viciously hacked back trees. It really is an eyesore, and affects the entire neighbourhood's appearance. We have local ordinances against this kind of tree mutilation, but they are never enforced.

Sounds too bizarre to be true, but in the next garden over from where I was working today, a 'professional' gardening crew had done just that to four trees. The picture below isn't great, but you get the idea of the result. My coworker and I had a good laugh about it afterwards, but really, poor trees!

Hi all, I'm planning on going independent both as an arborist and landscaper in the near future. As a way to get steady work coming in right from the start, I'm considering offering my services as a subcontractor to established businesses in the area. Naturally, I'll be registered, insured, and have my own wheels and gear. I'd like to get some tips from the group as to how to go about doing that. How is it best to approach a prospective business client? What do business owners primarily look for in a subcontractor? Any other unique issues with the contractor/subcontractor relationship? Cheers, Gavin

Check out the skilled workers immigration program in Canada. After two generations of pushing kids hard to join the 'knowledge economy', they're starting to clue in that they need people who can actually do stuff, turns out there aren't nearly enough for the demand nowadays. I don't know much about NZ, but it seems like an awesome place. BUT Canada has everything you could possibly be looking for, and it's not too far from the UK (7.5 hours direct flight London to Toronto), something to consider if you're planning a permanent move. Parts of the country have very robust economies, you won't have any trouble finding work the big cities. But, the cost of living will kill you in places like Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary, even Ottawa. In my opinion, a better lifestyle is to be had in the smaller cities, or Quebec, if you can speak French. Check out Winnipeg, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Hamilton, St. John's, all cool cities where the rent won't eat your paycheque.

I bought Barnel loppers for my own use, and am hugely satisfied with them. They were a bit pricey, at 90 euros, but they make a clean cut, are light and well made, have a lubrication point, and all the parts are replaceable. At work, we use Wolf Garten loppers and pole pruners, and they are AWFUL tools to use, avoid them like the plague. They are anvil style, big and clunky, make a terrible cut while mangling the branch, and then wear out quickly, causing them to go out of line and pinch your fingers before too long, which really hurts. Verdammt scheize Werkzeuge, nein nein nein!

Nicest mower I've ever used.

I think that in your case in the UK, being overly concerned with the 'are you local' approach to plant selection can be seriously limiting, especially when it comes to being somewhat self sufficient in food. Western Europe, and Britain in particular have very few native tree and shrub species relative to similar climate zones in Asia and North America. This is because of the series of glaciations the world has seen for the past couple of hundred thousand years. Every time the glaciers rolled down over Europe, a few more tree species couldn't make it over the Alps, and went extinct, where in Asia and North America, they simply moved south. Many exotic types of trees planted in Britain could be viewed as reintroductions from this standpoint, within reason.

Evaluate all of your permanent plantings from the standpoint of multiple uses. Does the tree do anything for you besides look nice? If you are looking to have your property provide some of your family's nutrition needs, large trees could be a liability, because they could seriously reduce available space for vegetable gardening, where you can really grow a lot of food in a small space. But if you've got some room, fruit trees are an obvious go, they can be trained small enough so as not to shade out your veggie plot, and can be producing fruit in just a couple of years after planting in some cases. Nut trees can are also worth looking at, but require space and time to produce fully. Vines like kiwi and grape, bushes like ribes, and raspberries are other woodies to be considered.

Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum), Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus), Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa). There are a pile of others I'd plant if I had the space, but those are my three favourites.