What the ?????

[Jumper]

This is what is left of a 32 year old maple up the street from my parents' house here in Toronto. Either someone started to remove it, and never finished the job (and in any event the whole thing could have been dropped in one piece) or a misguided homeowner decided to butcher it himself. Kind of ticks me off as the tree belonged to the City on the right of way. Perhaps I should forward the evidence to City Hall and they can get the person responsible to replace it???

 

[SilverBlue]

HA! That is a genuine Munincipal removal. Soon there will be another crew with a crane to lift the whole thing and grind it up. City of Brampton does the same thing.

 

[rahtreelimbs]

This seemed to be a common occurence this past summer in my area. Some tree co. ( or tree arse ) butchered maples the exact same way.

Never did find out who did this. The ones that I saw were well away from any main power supply.

 

[Husky288XP]

One thing we as Tree CARE Workers should do is to educate the general public about proper tree care practices. It is not their fault that they do not know any better, that is why they call us.

 

[jamie]

ahhh pollarding

if i aint mistaken thats just a bit of so called pollarding, cutting the top off of the tree and it'll regrow, aint nowt wrong there

we get a lot of that over here.

some guy round the corner had 5 small birch and had them stripped to poles (6"dbh) and now 3 have started to grow shoots, 2 are dead and 1 has a bird feeder on it....

why he wants these ugly dead sticks i dont know, if he is going to mutilate them this much, take them out and start again.....

couple of contriversal points

1. (before i start im not advocating this) with sensitive pruning like we have just seen, would wearing spikes make any major difference to the tree????? my theory is that the first 3 zones have already been breached with the topping cuts, so would the use of spikes create any more damage (maybe helping to speed up the decay process)

2. in large woods i feel that topping of large trees could be more acceptable where the tree poses a danger to the public but its removal will create a negetive impact on the woodland... so by reducing the height of the tree to say about 15 foot, the tree becomes safer, the public still see a tree there, some deadwood habitat is created, for the best part the shorter stem is unnoticed, most folk dont spend all day looking at the canopy, and the lower canopy of other trees screens the reuced stem?????

any thoughts on those 2 points?

i had some photos to accompany these but my phone isnt working right (its on the the fancy video phones)

jamie

 

[jmchristopher]

It looks like municipal and/or low bid work to me. I think in the UK they call it council work. If so, someone might have a shot at finding an educable or threatenable civil servant. If you can mount even a small campaign of outraged and informed citizens, it's possible to move a bureaucracy. Slowly, maybe, but they're influencable.

 

[DadF]

Check Danf's last posting on the Asian Longhorned beetle problem in Toronto-is it possible that this maple is on the removal list ? Sounds like more than one tree is going to the chipper though

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Re: ahhh pollarding

Originally posted by jamie
with sensitive pruning like we have just seen, would wearing spikes make any major difference to the tree????? (maybe helping to speed up the decay process)
Yes it would make a difference; many more wounds for the tree to waste resources on trying to wall off.

2. in large woods i feel that topping of large trees could be more acceptable where the tree poses a danger to the public but its removal will create a negetive impact on the woodland

NONONONO, if a tree poses a danger it may be reduced with proper reduction cuts or perhaps selective heading cuts, but random whacking is always wrong unless you are intentionally creating a wildlife spar. Even then, leaving stubs that will likely die in a public area is a bad idea liability-wise, isn't it?

 

[jamie]

ok

ok, i thought i might try and open up a discussion with this one,


in point 1 i just want to clarify that i wouldnt use spikes,

on point number 2 i mis-stated myself, the tree in question had been reduced to a stem, no large pegs just a standing stem.....i reckon that the tree suffered the loss of a large limb and was taken right down to about 15ft and left so as not to create a large gap on the ground,

through out the wood there are many dead dying and fallen trees that are left lying(there are no recently fallen trees so im not too sure if they are delimbed and 'made safe')

jamie

 

[geofore]

bettle

Guy, when you mention the bugs why not include the threads on the bettles from over on the residential forum in your post? Some of the folks don't go there to read up on the bettles.

 

[begleytree]

My only competition in town does this to every tree they 'trim' The owner has never been in a tree, uncle died in '92 and left co to nephew. Heartbreaking to see medium sized pin oaks topped off, with 3 2foot long stubs on top and everything else cut off.

Loved it a few years back, the guy didn't have a bucket and his men started a big sycamore and quit saying there was no way to trim it without one. Paid me to bring a bucket , he (owner) played groundie for me. Bucket only reached 1/2 of the tree, I climbed out out the bucket and finished the tree. Boy was he mad! Bad part is that it was in the middle of a lg lawn for a church, I could have dropped it and not hit anything, no roping at all.

Most of the problem here is educating the public. Many folks have asked me to pollard their tree, I refuse, thats my buisness card standing in their yard. Some I trim properly, some call the competition.
-Ralph

 

[Husky288XP]

I believe Pollarding is the continuos topping of trees that always cuts back past or before the previous wound. It's pretty common in European nations, for size control of valued asset trees. The photo above is just plain hacking.

 

[Lumberjack]

Around here that is refered to as topping. Makes the tree look like crap, exspecially when they do it to a old red oad. Just saw 3 that were done recently by the head of maintenance at the light and water in the city. Looks great!!!

Pollarding is making the topping cuts (internodal) first year. Knobs form at these cuts, and the sprouts that come out are too be removed every year or coupla years, but the knobs are to be left alone. No more internodal cuts are to be made after the first year of pollarding. The knobs make the topping (hack) a pollard (weird but ok if that is what you like)

Carl

 

[jamie]

aye

aye pollarding is a management technique

while coppicing cut at stump height to create a 'stool' live stock would eat the shoots, so where live stock grazed the trees were cut high to create pollards, the resulting growth would be used for whatever, weaving, tanning etc

jamie

 

[Lumberjack]

Or for shoots for fuel or shelter.

Carl

 

[Jumper]

We are not in the zone for the Asian Longhorn Beetle; it is about ten miles west of here. I do not think this is pollarding either, as I have seen it done in Europe . I am going to phone the City's Foresters Office this morning and ask if they had an thing to do with this butchery.

 

[Jumper]

This story came to a conclusion yesterday, after two years of queries.

The City Forester did not reply to my polite inquiries, so I brought the matter up with our local councillor who does care about things. They followed it up with the City forestry department, which has decided that after "monitoring' the tree for two years that it is doing fine and does not need to be removed. I am sure most of you can guess exactly what it looks like! Rita assured me the homeowner who did this to a city owned tree on the boulevard had been advised that they were not to prune or otherwise "improve" trees that were not theirs. This is the same City of Toronto forestry department that now has the power to decide whether or not you the owner can have a tree removed (after you pay them $100); they can not even look after their own trees, and now they are going to be God for everyone else's.

What is the value of a 33 year old Norway Maple? I am sure if I decided to deface the benches and kids swings in our brand new park (councillor at work again-he is an excellent elected official) I would be hauled into court and charged. Hack a tree to bits that does not belong to you-no problemo.

I tried.

 

[OTG BOSTON]

As a city forester myself I may be able to offer some insight...............

When a tree in mutilated like this one was it is very difficult to prove who did it. I deal with this type of thing on about a bi-weekly basis. Sometimes there is a neighbor/witness who will show up in court and make it a slam dunk for us. Sadly, usually, we don't have a witness and we leave the hacked tree for the homeowner to stare at forever. You really wouldn't believe what people do to trees..............................

 

[Jumper]

I was lead to believe they owned up to it-in any event it would not take rocket science to deduce that as you can imagine what their yard looks like. Mutated/multilated if nothing else. But proving it would be another thing. What got me going in the first place was the damage to public property. Anyways it now looks like a fluffy poodle with at least 300 suckers up to eight feet long growing every which direction, "healthy" and "thriving" in some people's books at least I suppose.

 

[OTG BOSTON]

It use to drive me crazy. Now I just figure their own bad Karma will get them in the end.