Call all arborists...

[Morrolan]

Hi all,

Not quite bushcraft I know, but I would like some assistance from any arborists out there!

My mums house in a Manchester suburb has a lovely old oak tree in the front garden, 90 ish years old.

The tree is the middle is the one. The other day a guy from the council came around and said it was diseased and hollow inside, which I didn't believe. However I live 50 miles away and wasn't able to assist. So, over the past few days they've taken it down piece by piece.

Today the guy from the council has admitted that they've stuffed up, and basically left the tree in a stuffed-up pollarded state that looks an eyesore.

So, after they've done all of the damage they've admitted they got it wrong - personally now we want them to finish and remove the rest of it, but they're saying that they'll get in trouble (!!!) if they remove what is a "healthy" tree?

Can anyone offer any advice on what to do next please?

Many Thanks,
Morrolan

 

[JonathanD]

Sue them!!!!! I'd personally leave it and wait for a comeback.

 

[Shewie]

What a bunch of incompetent jokers, that deserves a letter to Watchdog

 

[MartinK9]

Sue them!!!!! I'd personally leave it and wait for a comeback.

I agree, If it had been the other way around and you had done that to the tree you would be in trouble - £20,000.

Have a look here:

http://www3.lancashire.gov.uk/corporate/atoz/a_to_z/service.asp?u_id=2400&tab=1

The least they can do is complete the job and remove the rest and plant a new one.

 

[EdS]

who owns the land - looking at the photo it looks as if the tree is the garden of the house, rather than on the highway, in which case it is owned by the property owner - if so report them for criminal damage.

 

[dwardo]

The local council here have just managed to ringbark 4 oak saplings that they planted last year by strimming the base of them ???????

Muppets.

 

[ged]

Can anyone offer any advice on what to do next please?

Give it time. It has a chance. And make sure that the council faces prosecution.

 

[Peter_t]

yes they have ballsed that right up. if it was hollow and dangerous they should have cut it down completely.
pollarding is only acceptable to do to young trees not 90 year old trees!! also oaks are not the most vigorus of trees and they have done it at the wrong time of year so i doubt it will ever recover.
this time of year lots of reasorces and sugars will be in the branches and leaves. as they have cut them all off they have robbed the tree of those reasorces. reducing the crown will also effect the roots as they are not being fed by the crown they will weaken and will become an easy target for decay. unhealthy trees cannot resist disease and decay effectively so this tree will probably get more unstable over time.


imo the best thing to do now would be to remove it completely and plant another tree in its place.


i hope they are ashamed of themselves tbh


when the councel suspect a tree is dangerous they tend to over react.
i helped cut down a masive corsican pine in lewis a few months back. im not sure how old it was but it had to be a good 4 foot wide at the base, a real shame it had to go. the tree forked fairly low down and had a weak branch union with included bark and decay was suspected. i didn't really understand why it was coming down because there was a brace higher up to hold the two stems together. problem was that next to the tree was a kids play ground and with the prospect of being sued because of the tree falling on some childeren they paniced.

the public where not at all happy. people screaming at us or in tears for three days because of us even when we tried to explain got old quickly.

when it was cut down there was no sign of decay etc. and the tree officer agreed and said it would probably have been ok for another 10-15 years.


pete

 

[Elines]

You could try contacting Jon Stokes of the Tree Council:


71 Newcomen Street
London
SE1 1YT

Tel: 020 7407 9992
Fax: 020 7407 9908

Email: info@treecouncil.org.uk


A few months ago I was at a lecture he gave where he put up very similar 'before and after' pictures as an example of what 'cowboy tree surgeons' are doing to our green heritage.

Be sure to tell him which local authority did it. If you want a larf you could probably quote the LA's mission statement which will doubtless say they aim to conserve and develop the green environment (or similar).

 

[JonathanD]

yes they have ballsed that right up. if it was hollow and dangerous they should have cut it down completely.
pollarding is only acceptable to do to young trees not 90 year old trees!! also oaks are not the most vigorus of trees and they have done it at the wrong time of year so i doubt it will ever recover.
this time of year lots of reasorces and sugars will be in the branches and leaves. as they have cut them all off they have robbed the tree of those reasorces. reducing the crown will also effect the roots as they are not being fed by the crown they will weaken and will become an easy target for decay. unhealthy trees cannot resist disease and decay effectively so this tree will probably get more unstable over time.


imo the best thing to do now would be to remove it completely and plant another tree in its place.


i hope they are ashamed of themselves tbh


when the councel suspect a tree is dangerous they tend to over react.
i helped cut down a masive corsican pine in lewis a few months back. im not sure how old it was but it had to be a good 4 foot wide at the base, a real shame it had to go. the tree forked fairly low down and had a weak branch union with included bark and decay was suspected. i didn't really understand why it was coming down because there was a brace higher up to hold the two stems together. problem was that next to the tree was a kids play ground and with the prospect of being sued because of the tree falling on some childeren they paniced.

the public where not at all happy. people screaming at us or in tears for three days because of us even when we tried to explain got old quickly.

when it was cut down there was no sign of decay etc. and the tree officer agreed and said it would probably have been ok for another 10-15 years.


pete

That's sad. My parents had to have an enormous Ash taken down as neighbours complained if it fell over it would squash houses. It was centuries old and the houses had been built around it as it was so big even in the 1700s. It was a beautiful, massive old ash and had a four foot diameter trunk easily. It was never going to fall down. Sad thing is, it destroyed the look of the property too and my folks felt the nature of the place had changed so much and the bird life so reduced, that they moved. They loved that place too.

 

[Peter_t]

That's sad. My parents had to have an enormous Ash taken down as neighbours complained if it fell over it would squash houses. It was centuries old and the houses had been built around it as it was so big even in the 1700s. It was a beautiful, massive old ash and had a four foot diameter trunk easily. It was never going to fall down. Sad thing is, it destroyed the look of the property too and my folks felt the nature of the place had changed so much and the bird life so reduced, that they moved. They loved that place too.

thats something i never understand. as soon as a tree gets big people think 'OMG its gonna fall over!!!!'
trees never just fall over. a big tree will have big roots to support itself, they dont get top heavy. if there was evidence that it was dangerous i could understand but it does annoy me when they come down for no good reason.


another common thing is someone buys a house thinking they like it but dont like the tree, they will just take it down when they buy it. oh no they can't. conservation areas and tree preservation orders oftern stop this. the customer says 'oh its ok its our tree you can ignor the TPO' 'do you want to pay the £20000 fine?' 'no thats rubbish its our tree!' then when you tell them they knew what they where geting when they bought the house and they shouldn't have got it if they didn't like the tree they tend to get quite angry.



pete

 

[ged]

another common thing is someone buys a house thinking they like it but dont like the tree,

I don't understand how people can not like trees. There has to have been something seriously wrong in their formative years. As I write I'm looking at a huge variety of ash, beech, birch, hawthorn, oak and willow, not to mention apple, elder, hazel and, all right, a few sycamore. Without those trees the land would be practically barren.

Now and then I have to get out there with a pruning saw or we'd have to have the lights on during the day. The neighbours cost me a fortune in sunflower seed hearts. The foxes bait the dogs something shocking, and between them they'll sometimes keep us awake half the night. I can cope with all that. I don't care too much about what's this side of the window, but if the trees were gone tomorrow I'd plant some more, then pack up and leave.

 

[robin wood]

Today the guy from the council has admitted that they've stuffed up, and basically left the tree in a stuffed-up pollarded state that looks an eyesore.

Well that surprises me. Dangerous tree surveys are not black and white things to do there is always an element of subjectivity and sometimes when you cut into a tree you don't find what you expected from the outside. Personally it is not such an eyesore to me and given a few years it will grow back and look as good as ever.

thats something i never understand. as soon as a tree gets big people think 'OMG its gonna fall over!!!!'
trees never just fall over. a big tree will have big roots to support itself, they dont get top heavy. if there was evidence that it was dangerous i could understand but it does annoy me when they come down for no good reason.

I used to think this too. I worked for the National Trust when tree surveying came in 20 years ago and at a conference Oliver Rackham questioned how often trees actually caused damage. The answer was surprisingly often, in fact faliing limbs and trees was the second most frequent cause of insurance claims against the Trust. A few weeks later we did a training course at Chartwell and all passed a large copper Beech in the car park as healthy, a week later it shed a large limb which crushed a car.

Tree surveys are now big business. If someone ticks a box as healthy and it fall the next week they are in trouble. If they tick a healthy tree as dangerous and clear it away quickly nobody objects because there is no evidence left.

Personally I would far rather this tree was left to grow back, oak throws lots of epicormic shoots and a tree of this age would come back very strongly and have far more ecological and amenity value than a young sapling. My only reservation is that I don't like high pollards like this. When it grows back there will be weak joints high up which will become dangerous in 20 years time and need more tree surgery. I think low pollards cut clean off at 8' high as they used to do would look equally well, be great habitat and cost a small fraction of the cost to maintain. Pollarding also greatly extends the life of a tree so most of our ancient oaks were once pollards.

 

[Nagual]

A neighbour had her two oaks pollarded a couple of years ago, at first they looked very much like that one, a right sorry state. Now they have many many small shoots and branches appearing and in a few years it they will be very impressive again. I'm sure the tree will recover in time, it will seem like forever though to us short lived humans..

 

[dwardo]

Its a shame that peoples professional opinion these days seems to be not match for hindsight?
Its a living individual thing??? Besides the completely obvious how is anyone to know when its going to drop a limb?

Daft..

 

[JonathanD]

So what happened with this then?

 

[addo]

Heathy trees can fall over, and do so in high wind, boggy ground or suddenly exposed to the elements if another tree or building offering shelter is removed nearby.
Large Oaks, Ash and beech drop branches as self pruning this time of year too.

Diseased trees can stay up fine as a completely hollow mature Oak with a full canopy riddled with decay fungi has done on top of a windy hill near me.

Nothing is black and white with trees. Two mature oaks I recommended work on, adjacent to a major highway due to Ganoderma present in the base of the trees, were worked on, one of which was pollarded in exactly the same way. We had thermal imaging photos taken, followed up by increment boring. The trees had internal rot, and plenty of it So the worst one was felled. But, the there was a few years left in the other, so, we pollarded it rather than fell to see how it would do. It has started to come back exept on one limb.

Its all about thinking the job through and using all the techniques available, including a risk assesment. If theres no obvious decay, disorder or target to hit, often no work is needed. Without knowing all reasons for the councils decision, its hard to judge. Ask them for the paperwork relating to the tree, pass on to an professional to look through if you feel there has been some wrong doing in the process.

It might come back yet but its had one heck of a shock.

 

[demographic]

thats something i never understand. as soon as a tree gets big people think 'OMG its gonna fall over!!!!'
trees never just fall over. a big tree will have big roots to support itself, they dont get top heavy. if there was evidence that it was dangerous i could understand but it does annoy me when they come down for no good reason.

Can you remember the big storms in 87?
Can you remember the glut of beech and oak timber on the market afterwards?

Any idea why there was so much and why there was so much roof repairs being done as well?

Beech is notorious for having shallow roots and they are comparatively easy for high winds to uproot, stuff like Eucalyptus can be quite brittle and drop branches as well.

 

[Peter_t]

Can you remember the big storms in 87?
Can you remember the glut of beech and oak timber on the market afterwards?

Any idea why there was so much and why there was so much roof repairs being done as well?

Beech is notorious for having shallow roots and they are comparatively easy for high winds to uproot, stuff like Eucalyptus can be quite brittle and drop branches as well.

do i remember? no sorry i wasn't born.
if having a big tree near a houses worries people they shouldn't buy the house or be stupid enough to plant trees such as eucalyptus in a small garden.


pete