is this tree over thinned?

[woodworkingboy]

This is all noise...trees do not need one single thing cut off of them except to modify their structure to accomodate life in close proximity to us.

This is too simplistic a statement for me to understand. You mean that less humans, health benefits to a tree would not be derived by pruning, including to the surrounding environment? I know a few dark jungles, and I don't think you mean that, so it must be that you are thinking in terms of the larger natural environment, where life and death is all part of the natural evolution of things, so humans affecting them is not needed for trees to play their proper role in that scenario. Can you elaborate somewhat please.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Trees can do just fine w/o humans.

 

[treelooker]

... i think its hard to see how large the tree is and how rotten the trunk is in that picture.

So how rotten is it? 1" deep x 3" wide x 5" high, or 2x4x6 or...If you are the assessor then measuring is part of the assessment, right?

".in a threatened environment of limited size, where introduced trees are outcompeting natives and endemics, overshading, outgrowing and where blowdowns crush and maim surviving natives, tree modification is for the benefit of the remaining original environment"

yes it is also for the benefit of the tree itself. When branches and stems break that is not good for the tree. Pruning prevents breakage and helps the tree. Not complicated.

 

[sotc]

I was gonna say no one hires me to prune forest trees but ODOT, BLM and the Forest service did once We were hired to go thin some large conifers in the forest on BLM land so birds of prey could see the ground better from the tree tops ODOT messed up some forest service trees on a highway project so they were asked to pay for some other work but the Forest service didn't have anything in the area to work on so they asked BLM:roll:

 

[gf beranek]

I agree a lot with what B says. In the wild trees figure it out on their own just fine and mature into the most beautiful examples of species. Though it is random and chaotic, brutal too. But we can learn a lot from it and even put some of what we learn into practice in the urban setting. Some parks and gardens exemplify it.

In urban settings it's a whole other way of looking at trees and dealing with them. Few introduced trees will ever chance to mature, and instead they go through a lot of hell and manipulation to control their growth to keep them in "check" Often the only thing we can do is keep them resembling a tree the best we can while keeping them keep them safe have near infrastructure. Their days are usually short lived. In the meantime everybody has their opinions on the matter of how to maintain our urban trees. To me it all starts with picking the right species to plant in a particular location first and second give it the room to mature. But that never happens except on rare occasion. And so we have what we have in the urban setting today.

The most destructive treatment/care of trees where I live comes when the city slickers moves to the coast and build a road into the woods, opens a site to build a mansion. Cutting down the natives, stripping them up, topping them out for an ocean view and planting non-native and invasive species, cut down more tree to have a lawn. And their bumper sticker says they're tree hugger's. Ha!

It gets ridiculously complicated to make heads or tails of at times.

 

[Burnham]

This is all noise...trees do not need one single thing cut off of them except to modify their structure to accomodate life in close proximity to us.

This is too simplistic a statement for me to understand. You mean that less humans, health benefits to a tree would not be derived by pruning, including to the surrounding environment? I know a few dark jungles, and I don't think you mean that, so it must be that you are thinking in terms of the larger natural environment, where life and death is all part of the natural evolution of things, so humans affecting them is not needed for trees to play their proper role in that scenario. Can you elaborate somewhat please.

I mean exactly what you state, except I only referred to the tree, not it's surroundings: "You mean that less humans, health benefits to a tree would not be derived by pruning, including to the surrounding environment?" A tree does not need, nor desire, parts of it removed. If an accident befalls a tree, say wind or snow load breakage, it compartmentalizes just fine without human intervention...I might argue that it does so better than it can handle saw cuts, so far as keeping rot from expanding.

However, your second premise is quite accurate, Jay. I completely agree with that as well.

 

[squisher]

Hell I prune trees for money, but I honestly don't believe that alot of good comes of it for the tree(in a mature tree). And I've done some beautiful pruning as well as hacked some sh-t up before. I find it's usually a compromise to make the customer happy while still keeping a tree as intact as possible. Everyone here experiences it all the time, beautiful trees in crappy locations.

 

[Tucker943]

Trees can do just fine w/o humans.

Most certainly Butch. But heres the problem, we must co exist in a residential setting. We as humans have derived methods to maintain or improve the integrity of the trees we live beside. Nature thins out the sick and the weak. I see it daily in the woods. But most folks in their right state of mind dont like to see nature do the whole natural selection gig over top of a house they make a mortgage/rent payment on each month. Thats why they hire tree folks, such as ourselves, to manipulate those trees for better integrity so that the beauty of the tree can remain, and the dangers can be slightly lessened.

Im not trying to battle with guys of incredible experience levels. In fact, never in my time here have I gone nose to nose with the likes of skilled men like Burnham. I always listen and learn from you guys. Hell, I dont even post work pics up. Im too busy admiring the skill that many of you display. But in this instance, I will stand firm as a rock to ANYONE of any experience level on the matter. Im not talking about trees in the woods and how nature handles them. Thats irrelevant. Im talking about trees in a residential setting and the measures we take to minimize the danger of coexisting with them.



Alright, Im gonna go have a cigarette and stop my ranting and carrying on. lol

 

[SkwerI]

Hell, I enjoyed your rant, Tucker.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Thanks for the clarification, Burnham.

I have some long time gardener friends, a couple brothers. They have their small pruning clippers attached to their belts in a pouch, it seems like just about all the time except when in bed! We might go somewhere to look at a tree or something, and when they are walking around they often pull out their scissors and snip snip here and there, at some place not at all their business. i don't think that they can help it.

 

[Tucker943]

Skwerl, how you feeling bud?

 

[SkwerI]

Rockin' and rollin'!

 

[Porkbrick]

So how rotten is it? 1" deep x 3" wide x 5" high, or 2x4x6 or...If you are the assessor then measuring is part of the assessment, right?

this was a dig out the fill and quick visual inspection. now we can go back and do a more thorough investigation, take measurement, drill, and make some recommendations to the client. the rot you can see in the pic above the girdling root is about 12"x8".

 

[Burnham]

Most certainly Butch. But heres the problem, we must co exist in a residential setting. We as humans have derived methods to maintain or improve the integrity of the trees we live beside. Nature thins out the sick and the weak. I see it daily in the woods. But most folks in their right state of mind dont like to see nature do the whole natural selection gig over top of a house they make a mortgage/rent payment on each month. Thats why they hire tree folks, such as ourselves, to manipulate those trees for better integrity so that the beauty of the tree can remain, and the dangers can be slightly lessened.

Im not trying to battle with guys of incredible experience levels. In fact, never in my time here have I gone nose to nose with the likes of skilled men like Burnham. I always listen and learn from you guys. Hell, I dont even post work pics up. Im too busy admiring the skill that many of you display. But in this instance, I will stand firm as a rock to ANYONE of any experience level on the matter. Im not talking about trees in the woods and how nature handles them. Thats irrelevant. Im talking about trees in a residential setting and the measures we take to minimize the danger of coexisting with them.



Alright, Im gonna go have a cigarette and stop my ranting and carrying on. lol

Please don't misunderstand me, young friend. You are absolutely correct in your assertion that people and trees must co-exist where they share space. I agree with everything you have said here.

My point is that we fool ourselves if we think trees benefit from our intervention...it's only the people who gain from an arb's work, not the trees. Well, and those of us who do the work...obviously we gain from the process, too...$$$

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I finished a customer this last fall pruning and dead wooding all his oaks within 200 feet of his house. Only one large oak that I had dead wooded and pruned lost a significant limb in this years storms. All his neighbors oaks looked like they were bombed from above or smitten down by the hand of the tree gods. He was quite grateful and I was happy his beautiful oaks held fast as well as they did through the storms. I now get to go back and appreciate those trees every couple of years or so Or as I drive by the place from time to time.

 

[bill22]

I'm must get some of the most ridiculous trim or prune jobs known to tree men,I had one back in October where i was hired to ruin a beautiful live oak for insurace purposes,lots of large lead removals and the classic cut all my neighbors tree limbs hanging over my property back to the fence line.Just stupid,i kinda envy you guys who have customers that actually listen to you and take your advice.Down here its cut alot as cheap as possible.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Happens here too Bill. Sometimes they listen.. Sometimes they don't. With insurance companies.. They Can't.
If CDF and the insurance company says 14 foot above the roof clearance... That is what must be to comply.

 

[treelooker]

I respect trees' abilities to take care of themselves, but they do not always work, and it's not productive to exaggerate them.

"If an accident befalls a tree, say wind or snow load breakage, it compartmentalizes just fine without human intervention.."

RFLMAO! Are you saying that no tree was ever destroyed by storm loading, and all damage is sealed over "just fine"? That is just whack. It's a common view held by foresters (and arborists who hold their profession in low esteem) about arboriculture, but it's ludicrous. Case in point:

I finished a customer this last fall pruning and dead wooding all his oaks within 200 feet of his house. Only one large oak that I had dead wooded and pruned lost a significant limb in this years storms. All his neighbors oaks looked like they were bombed from above or smitten down by the hand of the tree gods. He was quite grateful and I was happy his beautiful oaks held fast as well as they did through the storms. I now get to go back and appreciate those trees every couple of years or so Or as I drive by the place from time to time.

Mr. Burnham, sir, please reconsider. O and bill, there are lots of tree owners in central florida who will do right by their trees, when they have confidence that their arborist will do right by their trees.

 

[Burnham]

Fair enough, I'll happily agree that in extreme cases of damage the tree cannot cope...but in those cases could human intervention help? And I'm not saying "all damage is sealed over"...I'm saying the tree doesn't need our attentions except to meet our desires for that tree.

 

[treelooker]

"Fair enough, I'll happily agree that in extreme cases of damage the tree cannot cope...but in those cases could human intervention help?"

Sure could've helped prevent it, and yes an intelligent human with a a saw can speed closure--attached pic of a closed 6" wound 6 years after Mr. Skwerl headed a broken central leader back to the first good node. Maybe Brian will opine on what that tree would look like today, had he not intervened.

"And I'm not saying "all damage is sealed over"...I'm saying the tree doesn't need our attentions except to meet our desires for that tree."

See above. You said "If an accident befalls a tree, say wind or snow load breakage, it **compartmentalizes just fine** without human intervention...I might argue that it does so better than it can handle saw cuts, so far as keeping rot from expanding."

See the closed saw cut attached, and another view on this question, and see how your argument looks in the face of that evidence. From this point of view, the anti-arboriculture rant holds no water.

Like you, I greatly admire the power of forests to take care of themselves, and the way that healthy trees unstressed by city life can overcome damage. Individually speaking, trees per se benefit from arboriculture.

O and Pork, does the advanced assessment have to include drilling?

View attachment restore_2010_06.pdf

 

[SkwerI]

Guy, was that at that office park? Or was that at a residence? I remember the office park and the dozen or so trees we climbed. And that was longer ago than 6 years, I quit smoking 8 years ago and I was holding a cigarette in the group picture that day. Checking the image info it says 12/2002.

 

[treelooker]

Guy, was that at that office park? Or was that at a residence?

Front yard of a residence downtown Raleigh; small yard, pine up against the oak had wisteria in it. check the whole-tree pic in the article for a refresher. I think you did that whole tree yourself; lotsa big cuts to teensy twigs. Remember me hollerin' "go ahead, size of lateral don't matter, screw the 1/3 rule"? or some such...

Pic taken in 2008 by Blinky; 8-2=6. The central leader closed up first--some of the wounds from side leaders are closed now.

You did a great job on the tree and the owners are very happy. So...how do you think the tree would look today if you had not made those selective heading cuts?

 

[SkwerI]

I remember a big tree between two driveways, the first one I climbed for you and my rope wasn't long enough to reach the ground from my tie in. Biggest damn tree I had ever climbed at that time, I was scared to death but was determined not to let it show. I was also having a hard time spotting deadwood since our oaks hold their leaves all winter. I think I cut a few green limbs by mistake.

The only other one I remember was a pine removal where I speared the entire top into a small opening rather than rig it all out. Made an 18" hole but didn't touch the flowers in the lady's garden 15' away.

Anyway, glad they were happy. Cool knowing that Chip was the next person in that tree after me. And yeah, there was no way we could have removed that whole central trunk back to a 1/3 lateral. I was totally going on instinct there and not by what the rule book said.

 

[woodworkingboy]

That dog is cute!

 

[treelooker]

I remember a big tree between two driveways, the first one I climbed for you and my rope wasn't long enough to reach the ground from my tie in. Biggest damn tree I had ever climbed at that time, I was scared to death but was determined not to let it show. I was also having a hard time spotting deadwood since our oaks hold their leaves all winter. I think I cut a few green limbs by mistake.

yeah you did, I think we talked about the scratch test. On that one what I remember most is that chunk bouncing on the driveway and hitting the back door. No damage done, but it did pique my attention. The tree in the pic with Chip's boot is next door to the south; we got to it a few days later. Amazed you do not remember it--it is a good bit taller, and the ice damage was horrendous--70%+ crown loss.

The dog is Blue, named after the Blue Ridge Trail, which I found him on. Found out later that he is a blue heeler, and yeah he is the best looking one of the bunch...Oxman in front, Sanborn behind him. who took the pic, anyway?