69 Yards COR-TEN and 32 cubic yards oak chips

[Treespotter]

Todays job was a treat for one of the oaks in front of the town hall.

 

[Treespotter]

Closer.

 

[Treespotter]

The COR-TEN steel ring is four inches high and the total area is filled with about 32 cubic yards six weeks old oak wood chips.

 

[Treespotter]

And a last one with my colleague Tamil blowing the last bits.

 

[Tr33Climb3r]

What a beautiful tree! And that's a lot of mulch however if that were my tree I would have the same size mulch ring. Now in the fall do you get rid of all the leaves (looks like your partner is doing) or do you mix some into the mulch?

 

[TC]

very nice, whatis CorTen?

 

[nuthin_special]

What did you use to cover the turf?

I'm also curious what the intent for future leaf drop is. Leave them on the mulch or remove them?

I wish people would pay for that up here. Very nice.

How long did it take to complete?

 

[Treespotter]

Mmmmm, questions.

Policy of that council is the removal of all the leaves in autumn. Hence, deteriorating veteran trees in front of the town hall. The only thing Tamil was blowing where the 'spills' of the chips. We made it clear to the council that it was kind of obligatory to get all the leaves into the COR-TEN ring.

The next text is from this Wikipedia page; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steel
COR-TEN steel is a weathering steel. "Weathering" means that due to their chemical compositions, these steels exhibit increased resistance to atmospheric corrosion compared to unalloyed steels. This is because the steel forms a protective layer on its surface under the influence of the weather.
The corrosion-retarding effect of the protective layer is produced by the particular distribution and concentration of alloying elements in it. The layer protecting the surface develops and regenerates continuously when subjected to the influence of the weather. In other words, the steel is allowed to rust in order to form the 'protective' coating.

The turf is NOT removed. To me it's no problem that the grass will return in some spots. But if it does on this location the community employees will get rid of it.
Removing turf before mulching is a big NO-GO to me. In those first inches it's not only the turf roots that live there. So by removing the turf you are inevitably damaging tree roots. Decomposing grass is also used by worms to 'farm' their fungus that they eat.
Today we added about two pounds of live worms.

It took our mechanic about 4 hours to bore the holes in the ends of the 3 yards long strips an weld 3 pipes per strip on them and make 15 inch stakes that go into the little welded on pipes.
It took us both one day to get the chips under the crown of the veteran (using two big wheelbarrows getting the chips from the road to the tree) and construct the ring.
This job is a gift from me to the council for my 12,5 years anniversary of my company.

 

[nuthin_special]

That's really a great job to see. Thanks for sharing it with us. I'd be interested to see if and how much the grass grows through the chips.

If only we could do that to ALL the trees!

 

[treestyler]

Nice work Wolter.

Hope this tree will grow on untill the end off days in memory off your great gift !

see ya

wouter

 

[southsoundtree]

Nice work, great gift beautiful tree.