Cabling and bracing is a part of this biz that can provide huge benefits to both trees and people if done properly.
There's a very old school train of thought on cabling that says rule number one is to never cable or brace anything in a tree unless a structural defect is positively identified.
A rule with which I wholeheartedly agree today.
The analogy that can be made between tree limb strength and human arm strength is a valid one IMO.
Whether tree or human, assuming both are healthy, they either use it or lose it, put a limiter or cast on it? It weakens it, and therefore gets skinnier.
This is well illustrated by looking at branches that crossover each other being of smaller dia previous to that point toward the parent stem.
Trees are like people, the more exercise they get, the more fit and stronger they are. Snow loads are like tree dumb bells that stimulate reaction wood growth.
So the only means of strengthening a healthy tree limb is to apply a load to it, in moderate enough increments to avoid structural failure. Leaf load, rain load, snow load, ice load.
There is a science that applies to reaction wood formation, what stimulates it, and why it is scientifically preferable to only cable a tree when it actually has a structural defect.
In short I'm opening up a can o worms on all you Cobra synthetic dynamic cabling systems proponents. Pushing snake oil tree weakening systems on arboreally uneducated customers and clients.
If you do cable a tree? That system must be intended to last as long possible, the life of the tree. Because science proves beyond the shadow of a doubt, that said cabled tree will become dependent on its artificial support for life.
Kind of an old school if it ain't broke leave it be sorta logic.
Now I realize this could get nasty cuz a lot of Cobra proponents may hang here. So let's not get all bent outta shape just because I disagree the logic driving Cobra sales, I disagree with their science, at a very fundamental level.
Got a project going at a gardening friends house, where rather than cable her Tipu tree coming from the middle of her backyard decking and covering her entire upper level deck, I hung weights on the tree's laterals, in the form of potted plants, with integral plumbing that waters them on a timer, or should I say weights them on a regular basis?
The runoff waters the tipu host as a symbiotic beneficiary of this tree strengthening regime!
Twelve hanging plants adding more than just color and contrast to my friends exotic plant atmosphere on her backyard deck collection.
There's a very old school train of thought on cabling that says rule number one is to never cable or brace anything in a tree unless a structural defect is positively identified.
A rule with which I wholeheartedly agree today.
The analogy that can be made between tree limb strength and human arm strength is a valid one IMO.
Whether tree or human, assuming both are healthy, they either use it or lose it, put a limiter or cast on it? It weakens it, and therefore gets skinnier.
This is well illustrated by looking at branches that crossover each other being of smaller dia previous to that point toward the parent stem.
Trees are like people, the more exercise they get, the more fit and stronger they are. Snow loads are like tree dumb bells that stimulate reaction wood growth.
So the only means of strengthening a healthy tree limb is to apply a load to it, in moderate enough increments to avoid structural failure. Leaf load, rain load, snow load, ice load.
There is a science that applies to reaction wood formation, what stimulates it, and why it is scientifically preferable to only cable a tree when it actually has a structural defect.
In short I'm opening up a can o worms on all you Cobra synthetic dynamic cabling systems proponents. Pushing snake oil tree weakening systems on arboreally uneducated customers and clients.
If you do cable a tree? That system must be intended to last as long possible, the life of the tree. Because science proves beyond the shadow of a doubt, that said cabled tree will become dependent on its artificial support for life.
Kind of an old school if it ain't broke leave it be sorta logic.
Now I realize this could get nasty cuz a lot of Cobra proponents may hang here. So let's not get all bent outta shape just because I disagree the logic driving Cobra sales, I disagree with their science, at a very fundamental level.
Got a project going at a gardening friends house, where rather than cable her Tipu tree coming from the middle of her backyard decking and covering her entire upper level deck, I hung weights on the tree's laterals, in the form of potted plants, with integral plumbing that waters them on a timer, or should I say weights them on a regular basis?
The runoff waters the tipu host as a symbiotic beneficiary of this tree strengthening regime!
Twelve hanging plants adding more than just color and contrast to my friends exotic plant atmosphere on her backyard deck collection.
