Remember that tree?

[John Rumm]

You may remember my tale of woe about a dead looking willow about this time last year:

looking like:

the consensus seemed to be at the time that there was a chance it may recover some, so I decided to leave it for a season and then have a look again. This year it has perked up a bit and actually put on a fair bit of new growth on a couple of the branches. However it also became somewhat clearer which bits really were toast.

Most of the stuff that fell off it during the winter was very dry and brittle, and the woodpeckers had also started making a swiss cheese out of the end of the branch to the left that was close to one of the neighbours garages. So I decided it was time to take down the doubtful looking bits.

Taking care to only ladder the sound looking bits (and tying it on!), I did a few test cuts on some of the smaller dead looking branches. They really were past it. No bend in them at all - as you cut through, there came a point they just snapped and fell, and exploded into a shower of bits on impact. The density of the wood was also very low. So the one overhanging the neighbour I got a rope around, did a partial cut until it started creaking a bit, and then got down and well away. A couple of us pulling on the rope snapped it off and directed the fall away from the garage. The remaining bits on that side I could just about reach the thinner branches from my ladder with the pole mounted chainsaw, so I trimmed them off first to get the weight and size down, before taking the end of the main branch down in sections. I left one part of one of the lower sounder looking branches to use as a ladder rest while dealing with the next branch up, but then cut that right back as well when the top was done.

So now we are left with a rather lop sided looking specimin:

the remaining big stuff seems pretty sound although there is still some whispy dead stuff at the top. If anything more does fall now at least it has a clear space to land in. There was also some sign of new shoots sprouting from some of the larger branches lower down. So with luck it will put on some more growth lower down as well over time. I currently plan to leave it another couple of years, and see how it goes. If it gets a bit more growth lower down, then I may trim off some of the taller bits to get rid of the remaining dead wood and improve the shape a bit.

Got a couple of trailer loads of logs out of the bigger stuff:

others said, fairly crap on a fire, but will burn with mixed with better stuff. So might as well get some heat out of it.

[Andrew May]

Did you consider pollarding it? Just lop it off at the top of the trunk. Lots of examples around the fens or Somerset Levels. There is an old willow trunk on a roundabout near where I work. The tree was felled and the trunk was rotten in the centre. Even that is now putting up new shoots.

Andrew

[Dave Liquorice]

Having seen how it looks now, it does look a bit off balance and with a lot of windage (leaves/smaller branches) high up on the end of a branch.

I'm not a tree surgeon (isn't someone daughter training to be one?) but I'd be tempted to cut it back a bit harder, probably not back to just the trunk but leaving a more balanced array of branches.

[Jonathan]

The tree in the picture looks like a weeping willow to me. The willows seen on the fens etc. are typically crack willows and need pollarding every five years or so, otherwise huge branches can fall off with an enormous cracking sound. The trunks are used fro cricket bats, I believe.

That said, our huge weeping willow had a lot of diseased wood and we had it cut back to stump like branches (you can see the pictures at:

would certainly cut back the remaining longer branches. The tree looks very lop-sided and might be at risk from wind damage.

Jonathan

[chris French]

Yes, I agree

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

That's what I did with ours. Cut it right back to the stump just below all the big branches a few years ago and now have a great symmetrical tree in perfect health affording the original shade we once enjoyed.

It seems a drastic measure but made a significant difference to the garden and not trying to balance at the top of the tree waxing a saw about each year.

Think I did ours at the end of the summer and it still healed up in time for spring growth.

[John Rumm]

The photo was taken fairly close up and with a touch of wide angle - so it actually makes it look a bit worse than it actually is. However I may well yet lop more off it. My main concern was getting shot of the dodgy bits. There is a fair lean to the tree[1] (toward the camera) so all of its centre of gravity was pretty much to the side. So the removed weight ought to improve the situation rather than make it more unbalanced.

What is the best time of year to pollard them?

[1] We get strong winds from the east here - so most of the trees in the garden have a habit of leaning that way!

[Jonathan]

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My tree surgeon said that, for weeping willows, December and January are the only good months to do it.

Don't know why, other trees are dormant for far longer.

Jonathan

[Roger Chapman]

No idea I am afraid.

Last year I went on one of those farm meetings run by Natural England to advise farmers on the Uplands Stewardship Scheme. One of the topics under discussion was how to restore hedges that had been seriously neglected and the advice was to coppice them, cutting them off close to the ground rather than pollarding them at some height closer to desired hedge height. I am not sure how well that would work with the traditional thorn hedge. I have cut down a fair number of mature thorn bushes/trees over the years at various degrees of closeness to the ground and there seems no rhyme or reason why some stay dead and others sprout again. And the time for our thorns to become even squat bushes was in the region of 10 years. I really must get round to killing them off before they turn back into trees again.

ISTR that Willow has a reputation of coming back from the dead with even willow fence posts taking root and sprouting so you should have better luck with willow than my experience with thorn.

Incidentally we have (or at least had) a local tree surgeon who went by the name of Pollard. Seemed a very appropriate name given his trade.

[Andy Burns]

A chainsaw Brazilian?

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

waving... my typo's are getting worse as my eyesight fails and fingers forget where letters are.

8¬0

[John Rumm]

That could smart ;-)