Gavint

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.

Hi all, There are tons of good books on various tree related subjects out there, I've got a few myself. But, I'm looking to drop a few bucks on one meaty, possibly expensive, comprehensive tome on the subject of Arboriculture. There's Shigo's Modern Arboriculture and there's Arboriculture Integrated Management of Trees, Shrubs and Vines. Which of these, or another of your books on the subject are falling apart because you go back to them over and over again? Cheers, Gavin

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm planning on taking part in the booming economy of Nova Scotia. The winters there aren't nearly so brutal as you get in the prairies, or even the midwest or Ontario. I expect that there would be many days through the winter that would be good enough to work through there, and on the days where it is below minus 20, that's when I'll park myself at Timmies and forget about working. But, for the days it's, say, minus five to minus ten, can you get away with pruning without damaging the tree? The maritimes get very changeable weather at all times of the year, which can be hard to predict. Can freeze-thaw action screw up a tree after it's been pruned? All this talk of winter after a 15 degree sunny day today... Cheers, Gavin

Yes, but was that pruning cut harmful to the tree?

Hi Jamesd, All our AS mowers are baggers, with 4-stroke Briggs and Stratton motors. Why are you looking for a side discharge mower? When the grass is short enough that you don't need to bag it, mulching is a better option. You don't have to rake or blow afterwards, and the clippings are forced down onto the ground where they can be quickly broken down, as opposed to blown across the top of the grass, where they sit and dry off and look bad. The Toro Commercial came in a 2-stroke version (not sure if it still does) which was great on banks, and did a nice job mulching. I haven't looked around for a 2-stroke mower lately, are you limited in your selection because of this?

Hi All, Does anyone have experience doing tree work in extreme cold or snowy conditions? I'm fairly new to tree work, having started since I moved to Germany from Canada in 2011. I'm planning on returning to the Great White North in a couple of years time, and the plan is to continue on as an arborist there, because I'm loving this work. As a landscaper in Canada, there is the perennial problem of Winter (with a capital W) to deal with. What to do? Clear snow? Go on pogey? Starve in the dark a little? Generally it involves a little of all of the above, I never found a good solution in ten years working as a landscaper there. Since I've never done tree work in Canada, I don't know exactly how the season works there, and whether it can be a good bridge over the winter. My question is, how much can be done in extreme cold and/or snowy conditions? Tree felling is an obvious go, so long as you can get your fingers to work, but is there a cutoff temperature where it becomes harmful to the tree to prune? Are there any considerations with regards to climbing gear not working properly in cold conditions? What are the particular hazards associated with climbing/felling/crown bracing that should be taken into account with very cold weather and snow. I appreciate all your comments! Cheers, Gavin

Hi Jamesd, We've got a bunch of AS mowers at work, apparently they're pretty common here in Germany among professionals. I'd never seen them before moving here, and after using them, I was seriously unimpressed. They are slow, very heavy, hard to manoeuver, the self propulsion often doesn't work, and when it does, not very well, they don't bag clippings very well and are hard to start, even when warm. Picture pushing a 65 kilo mower uphill because the drive wheels aren't working again... no fun. At work, I call them the Ass mowers, but of course none of my coworkers get it because none of them speak English. After lots of coordinated whining to the boss, we finally got him to cave on some newer Sabo 54 Pro mowers. They're really nice mowers, get the job done, but are also very heavy. However, we had a Honda HRH 536 HX as a trial, and it was the best mower I have ever used. The hydrostat control is really nice for turning around and going through different grass heights, and the half-mulch-half-bag feature saves an incredible amount of time emptying the bag and carrying clippings. Back in Canada, we used the Toro Commercial mowers, and they were great. They did a great job and were bulletproof and fast, you could run behind them, and get about 15 suburban lawns done alone in a day. Perhaps TMI, but I'd go for the Honda, or a professional grade Toro. Cheers, Gavin