Before & After Tree Care

[rumination]

Looks good Nick. That's unpleasant work for sure.

 

[treesandsurf]

Did you put that stuff through your new chipper?

Guy, I still don't fully understand the logic behind that style of management? I get the whole biodiversity angle but it just seems strange, no?

jp

 

[treelooker]

I still don't fully understand the logic behind that style of management? I get the whole biodiversity angle but it just seems strange, no?

jp

Jon the more I see of it the less strange it seems. Managing trees i n that style makes sense if your timeframe is very long, and if you value those lil critters, and value the history/heritage angle too; as in, they did it this way 500 years ago and we want to honor that.

Maximalist, maybe you could climb higher and take less off? I fear your goal of making trees safe in wind will backfire when the sprouts get big and break. How soon do you plan to return to prune the regrowth?

In your last post is a blue square at the top; is that an attachment?

 

[stig]

Looks like a traditional pollarding job on poplar to me.
In that case, once the trees have grown beyond the max allowable size, they are topped and then repollarded every 3-4 years.

I have a bunch of Lindens to repollard at the castle, later this winter.
I'll be sure to post pix.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Whatever the customer wants - the customer is always right.

Yep.

 

[stig]

Feel like flaggelating that old dead pony again, Butch?

 

[treelooker]

Feel like flaggelating that old dead pony again, Butch?

That nag has been processed into devalue meals, and the rest is glue.

Allowed height?

 

[stig]

Not necessarily height as much as overall size.
Once they grow too big, we top and pollard them.
That is, if they are of a species that takes to pollarding. Around here that would be salix, populus, tilia and platanus.
Pollarding and coppicing has been practised here since the bronze age. Originally it was a method to allow harvesting yearly shoots and leaves to store as winter feed for cattle, horses etc.
When iron eventually got cheap enough to allow for the making of sickle and scythe blades, hay took over as winterfeed.
The practises of pollarding and coppicing was then used more to produce a steady amount of small diameter wood for basketweaving, the making of treen, fencing materials and firewood.
Around the time of WW2 most country roads here were still lined with pollarded poplars.

I consider it part of our cultural arbo-heritage around here.

But, since it isn't done in the US, Butch seems to think it sinful and wrong.

I also think it is a fine way to keep urban trees in check, since pollarding can keep them from growing any bigger, while at the same time keeping them alive for centuries.
I thought I had some pictures of some 250 years old lindens, that have been kept really small by yearly pollarding, but I can't find them.
Next time I go to the castle, I'll take some new ones. Those might interest you..

 

[MasterBlaster]

I just thing it's fugging ugly, but since it's been done since the Bronze age, who am I (or the US) to talk?

I'm pretty sure if the tree had its say, it would politely decline the procedure.

 

[Koala]

Pollarding and coppicing has been practised here since the bronze age. Originally it was a method to allow harvesting yearly shoots and leaves to store as winter feed for cattle, horses etc.

Even here. They used to do it especially on Mulberries, Limes and Willows. An ancient art, a treatment that a few species can tolerate well. And it has to be done properly.
Which means starting this practice when the tree is still young and keep re-pollarding regularly.
Sadly today pollarding is just another name for topping.

Never heard of pollarding poplars.
IMHO, pollarding poplars is looking for troubles.

 

[NickfromWI]

Did you put that stuff through your new chipper?

jp

I've tried it with the rental chipper before and it didn't work at all. So I tried again with the new chipper, but wasn't surprised when it didn't work.

It is funny when the roller crushes the banana trunk and gallons of water go spilling all over!




love
nick

 

[Marc-Antoine]

Even here. They used to do it especially on Mulberries, Limes and Willows. An ancient art, a treatment that a few species can tolerate well. And it has to be done properly.
Which means starting this practice when the trees is still young and keep re-pollarding regularly.
Sadly today pollarding is just another name for topping.

With a young tree, it keeps a good health state (almost).
But with an old one, "when it becomes too big", you make a lot of big cuts, so big wounds, which lead to massive internal rot. The tree can never close the wound soon enough to avoid fungi's degradations and it got first time a weak structure.

 

[stig]

True, but since it is never going to have a top again, it'll still last an loong time, before structural wekness get the better of it.
Most times, the alternative is felling the tree.

I bid on pollarding 3 semi mature sycamores last week, they are growing between tightly placed buildings in Copenhagen, and have completely outgrown their space.
Those I can do a traditional candelabra style pollard on, making the cuts small enough that the trees will be able to close them up.
There are already a lot of pollarded sycamores in that neighbourhood, so they will fit right in.

 

[treelooker]

True, but since it is never going to have a top again, it'll still last an loong time, before structural wekness get the better of it.
Most times, the alternative is felling the tree.

I bid on pollarding 3 semi mature sycamores last week, they are growing between tightly placed buildings in Copenhagen, and have completely outgrown their space.
Those I can do a traditional candelabra style pollard on, making the cuts small enough that the trees will be able to close them up.
There are already a lot of pollarded sycamores in that neighbourhood, so they will fit right in.

A row of 15-20 cm sycamores/ platanus along a road here would be prefect for the procedure, but the owners coul dnot wrap their heads around it when i brought it up.

cheap bastids; they will wait til there's a problem, which of course will be too late.

 

[treesandsurf]

Which means starting this practice when the tree is still young and keep re-pollarding regularly.
Sadly today pollarding is just another name for topping.

Exactly. Pollarding is not topping a mature tree,

jp

 

[Maximalist]

I wasn't there to see the trees, but from the pics, it looks like you didn't need to take quite as much.






love
nick

On the last photos trees that I cut my three years ago (February 2010)

 

[treelooker]

View attachment Risk assessment Russian.pdf

On the last photos trees that I cut my three years ago (February 2010)

Thanks for posting those; they tend to show the wild sprouting and probable decay that leads to trees breaking in storms. Maybe if cuts were smaller, the sprouting would be a lot slower, and the decay much less.

Was the pruning done to clear the wire? or to manage some other risk?

re the attached, is this publication still active? And can you tell who translated this one?

 

[Maximalist]

I can not open Your reference...(Risk assessment Russian.pdf)

 

[MasterBlaster]

It works for me... perhaps you need to update your Adobe program?

 

[Koala]

The link works for me too.

A little but old Magnolia Grandiflora from this morning

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Looks a great deal better!

 

[Koala]

Thanks!!!

The environment is surely not so exciting like that in the pics you're usually posting.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Oh I find working next to buildings and in tight place kinda exciting

 

[Koala]

Around here you could easily get over- excited then....

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Playing and working in Italy... Why yes... It would be very exciting for me