Fallen trees.

Anyone notice the root damage to the trees fallen in their area?

It seems to me that the way trees used to fall in the good old days was with a ruck of soil upheaval with a root-ball of sorts.

I noticed a number of trees in council "tended" areas with the break right at the foot of the bole. Is this something to do with the price of weedkilling?

Or is it just my point of view about the muddy rings the chancers working for council garden departments leave around the trunks of trees that are supposed to be in their care, clouding my vision?

Reply to
Weatherlawyer
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Sounds like a tree which had gone rotten, and should have been spotted and removed as part of regular park maintenance, which very likely isn't happening as much as it used to.

A year or so ago, several large trees around me were felled. To my untrained eye, they looked fine, but once felled, it was clear why. The trunks were probably 5' diameter, but there was only about 5" of timber around the circumference, with all the rest either rotten or hollow. Had one of those come down in the gales, it would have done considerable damage.

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Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

That is so interesting. We were talking about it last nite in the pub. We've noticed so many trees, healthy looking, broken at the bole, like snapped, revealing white healthy core. We indeed wondered why so many trees had been damaged in this way. I have no idea if the weedkillers (which I'm fighting my council about in my area) have something to do with it but I'm going to look into this!

We live in a conservation area (my husband put the policy into effect

16 years ago). Since then, the council sends a couple of guys to walk around and spray chemicals at the bottom of the walls all along the pavements to kill weeds etc. These walls are people's properties. Two years ago all my wall flowers, ferns and aubretia got killed. They even started having a go at our ivy! I still don't know what or why they spray and seem to only do this in leafy areas?! Are they pretending to 'do' something to keep our rates high?
Reply to
La Puce

The 75ft lime that fell over round here looks from the picture to have snapped off at ground level with the inside completely rotten. I'd guess we'd been protecting a dead tree for several years. The fact that it fell on a sweet little cottage in a conservation area is somewhat unfortunate

Reply to
Stuart Noble

I atttended a talk about trees by Ted Green fairly recently. He is particularly expert on veteran trees which are more numerous in the UK than the rest of Europe.

After the 1987 storm there was one area in southern England where virtually all of the trees had been destroyed apart from a few that had been marked with a red cross. However these trees had not been saved by divine intervention but much more by the fact that the trees were old and hollow and well butressed on the outside. The trees had been marked as they were thought to be unhealthy and were to be cut down but this experience showed that hollow trees are in fact strong. In fact is very likely that in all very old trees the heartwood will have rotted away.

Alan

Reply to
Alan Gardiner

No it's jobs for unempoyables and punishments for people we can't afford to put in gaol. For what it costs to do that poison walk, they could be applying mulches from leaves and composted detritus the same as good gardens do.

Only this is the 21st century and Britain doesn't have good gardens. (Well the Prince of Wales might but he can afford the subsidies.)

Even those spinning whip toys can cause a great deal of harm to a tree. In the hands of the stupid lead by the council officers of the calibre we get these days and always have had, they are a license to destroy with a death by a thousand cuts.

For my money I'd rather have the grass growing alongside nettles and other weeds around the boles of council trees.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

As others have said, most council tree's are just left alone, with minimal weedkilling slowly killing them, or as my local oaks suffer with root crushing and suffocation due to dumping of spoil etc when people extend their houses. No the council won't clear the crushing spoil, too costly, but they won't maintain the trees either, just slap preservation orders on them all...

Reply to
badger.badger

Having had a number of shed limbs in the car park at work and trouble overcomming our estates dept's inertia I went direct to Southampton City Council and their tree people addmitted that most of the cities trees hadn't been looked at for almost 30 years. School and major road trees are now being looked at first, we were told we might be lucky and they might look at the trees in 3-4 years, then a big bit fell, with the threat of the HSE getting involved they had a crew out the same day to take the rest of it down, the others however will still have to wait those 3-4 years....

Reply to
badger.badger

I walked round our local woodland today, and loads of trees had snapped at the lower part of the bole. Every one was already dead. Mostly fungal attack.

I surmise taht without leaves, there is enough force to snap a rotten tree when those around it are leafless..but in full leaf the healthy trees can take bending almost to the ground, and are more likely to uproot than snap. Certainly I saw ONE healthy ash tree that had been snapped by another dead one falling against it..and even then with its crown on the ground, it hadn't broken - half the lower trunk remained bent at 90 degrees ...

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

legislation is so much cheaper than actually addressing problems.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Ivy is the problem in this parish. It gives wind resistance to trees that would otherwise survive high winds in winter.

Reply to
Tony Williams

In message , badger.badger writes

Is this known for a fact, or just conjecture ?

Cheers, J/.

Reply to
John Beardmore

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