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[Kneejerk Bombas]

Originally posted by treeslayer
hurry up and just cut the futher mucker, it's a piece of s.h.i.t tree.
pick a better battle.

Hi Dan.

I'm glad you're not caring for my trees!

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by treeslayer
pick a better battle.

Spoken like a slayer of trees. That outlook would get me tarred, feathered and rode out of most of my clients' yards on a rail.
So would the pottymouthing.

Before you fight the preservation battle, you need more than a saw, you need an arborist's training and approach. Arborists facilitate the coexistence of trees and people, which does NOT mean cutting down cavity trees without any other information.

We're still waiting to hear what kowens finds out when he takes a real look at the tree, not just the glance we've seen.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

You asked for suggestions?

#1. Contract with the owner to do an aerial risk assessment so he pays you to climb the tree, check out the topping cuts, sound for decay with a rubber mallet, look for cracks,streaks,bugs, or any other sign of defect. Or if you think owner will balk at paying for inspection then sell phase 1 of pruning job and take out dead wood while you're up there.

#2 ID tree and pest species, look at vigor of tree, make a guesstimate of useful life expectancy and present your findings and opinions on management options to the owner in a written form that will remove liability concerns.

#3. Do not listen to the armchair Kevorkians who may post and say based on their telewisdom the tree has to go. See the "Safe tree" post below; the poster evidently couldn't be bothered to gather data besides a little numbercrunching, and instead seemed to be looking for moral support on a decision he didn't take the time to competently make on his own.

Numbercrunching is fine but you cannot ignore the research on the strength of woundwood published by Kane in JoA, which proves that strength formulas are not reliable on trees with a lot of woundwood, such as yours.

So owens, whaddyagonnado?

 

[dayman]

Guy lays out a good plan.

You want to document everything you tell them. Written and dated with pics.

Shift responsibility to them. Make sure that they are the ones making the decision.

Could you cable to the other tree?

Trunk hollows in the "hot Zone"
pushes trees into a higher risk catagory. Check out Ed Hayes book: Evaluating Tree Defects www.safetrees.com

 

[treeslayer]

my point was about the insulting, juvenile responses that are becoming standard fare on here. (especially from Orlando, Fla.)

my pottymouth is a planned response meant to elict a reaction.
how people can get so worked up over a one dimensional tree problem is funny to me, what about people who are not type A personalities? I'm sure thats why a lot of people don't bother signing in.

If I was new here and/or to climbing, the attitude of several people would not be conducive to sticking around and learning something that might save my life, or at least educate me.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by treeslayer
how people can get so worked up over a one dimensional tree problem is funny to me

I have no idea what you meant before or mean now. If it was sarcasm it blew right by me.

I've never seen a 1-dimensional tree problem, and yeah I do take em all seriously, maybe too seriously but there I am.

If others at times shoot from the lip, ia that a reason to shoot back? Cmon owens give us the data before we destroy each other speculating!

 

[treeslayer]

every tree problem defined with a picture on this site is one dimensional. (as opposed to seeing in 3 dimension).

armchair kevorkians sounds pretty accurate.

 

[NeTree]

Of course, if an armchair opinion wasn't wanted, why post them here in the first place?

 

[Stumper]

And, to pick a nit.....Photographs are TWO dimensional. The problems they are being used to illustrate are often multi-faceted.

 

[murphy4trees]

Now everybody take a deep breath....
AHHH That's better isn't it...... YES
Good to hear from you brother tree slayer..... been a while
You all know the thing about opinions....
I've been cutting trees off of houses since the mid eighties and tell myself I have a good sense of tree evaluations.... I've seen the ones that go down.... So have you (at least a lot of you)...
So how many of the hundreds or maybe thousands of trees that we have cut off houses have looked like this one????
That's why I tend to agree with Guy here.... I think the woundwood is strong and if the base looks otherwise healthy... then not too much to worry about...
Then of course there is the topped situation... needs a climb and evaluation... problem is most people don't know how to do that...
I also tend to agree with Mike Maas... lately I've lost my stomach for selling pruning.... I just don't think it helps the tree.... I only recommend it if there is a human need....
The again, if the customer called and asked us all to come take this tree down so his wife could sleep at night.... who here would argue???? So I guess I agree with tree slayer too....
This is a tough call to make standing under this tree.... how much harder given a few square inches on a computer screen??? But we all have to give it a try..... we're problem solvers by nature....

 

[NeTree]

Originally posted by murphy4trees

The again, if the customer called and asked us all to come take this tree down so his wife could sleep at night.... who here would argue????

I WOULD, Daniel.







It's out of my coverage area.

 

[Lumberjack]

If someone is truly scared of a tree, then cut it down(or someone else will and take the money), grind the stump, clean up the stump, and plant another tree.

If you could manage to make little widow Carter believe that the tree is safe, then a huge storm will come through and send it into and through her house. (Murphy's Law of course)

Then she will take you to court, but you will be covered because it was an act of God.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by murphy4trees
Then of course there is the topped situation... needs a climb and evaluation... problem is most people don't know how to do that...
I've lost my stomach for selling pruning.... I just don't think it helps the tree.... I only recommend it if there is a human need....
Murph I was with you up to here. (First off, the tree in question was not topped--pic was confusing to us all). Removing dead wood helps the tree close its wounds quicker, so selling deadwood removal is often the best and only way to sell an aerial inspection. Anyone can do this--you just look for things in the tree that don't look right, then look harder to see if they're a problem, then :Eye: at the big picture to figure out what to do about it.

The again, if the customer called and asked us all to come take this tree down so his wife could sleep at night.... who here would argue???? ..... we're problem solvers by nature....

Which is why while we should not argue, we cannot instantly accept the wife's insomnia as what determines the tree's fate. (Who knows--maybe her lack of sleep is due to her husband's lack of performance) If she's worried about risk problems, point out that all trees carry risk, and all risk can be reduced. Often risk reduction can help her sleep while keeping tree value on their property.

Arborists facilitate the coexistence of people and trees. If that coexistence is challenged by fear it's our job to reduce the fear. Sometimes removal is the best option, but an arborist will fairly present all options. Otherwise we are grubbing money off of fear, and selling butchery where surgery will work.

This "I don't think pruning helps the tree" stuff is at the heart of the decision--Bad pruning should not give all pruning a bad name. If you feel unethical about selling pruning you can get biased toward removal, for lack of options you have confidence in. And how does removal help the tree?

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by kowens
because the only tree that i can cable to has been topped
this is the only sullition i came up with but it will bemore exo then
removeing

Hey owens what is happening with this tree? Do you see all the other options besides cabling and removal?