Another of my videos. What do you think?

These tree's had been crown lifted to 10m 7 or 8 years ago. What was left was heavily end loaded lions tailed limbs. The limbs had poor taper, sun scold, dead and decaying bark at the base of some, and some of them were begining to subside out towrds the road and the property. It was only a matter of time before there was a failure.

The spec was not ideal, but here in the UK planners try to retain as many mature trees in suburban areas as possible because we've lost so many over the years. These trees will re-shoot and the re-growth will be managed on a new pollard cycle. They will probably grow up to 1m a year and be cut in 7-10 years.

I can see why you might feel that these trees were hacked. If they were willow, beech or Ash then yes they'd be doomed, but Holm Oaks are bomb proof, infact this has beed done to these trees several time in the past. The stems needed to come off before one fell off and rermoval of the trees were out of the question so what other options did we have?

Didn't think I would be on here justifying the works.

Just wanted to share one of the few vids we've made and get some comments on the rigging.

Mat
 
The rigging was good, the ground crew did a great job. But the pollarding had to be mentioned. I've done it myself, even attempted to manage a bad toppping into a sealed pollard only to have the property manager bring in someone cheaper to mismanage it.

I'd rather just replace the wrong species in the wrong place with a easier and cheaper tree to manage.

As nice as it is to have ongoing work I feel every dollar or pound spent has an enviromental impact. Someone had to commute to work, a child labourer had to glue the sole to the shoe, a pit mine had to be dug, whatever.

I know. Way off topic. I'm just getting at spend less and have a better world. So to bring it back, pollarding is ruining the world by not being cost effective.
 
Mat,

Your rigging looked nicely done.

We Americans have little pollarding experience, and different development regulations. Your additional information/ explanation is great. Thanks.

What I have heard about pollarding is that it is an annual pruning event. I think most have a similar idea.


As in the tree industry everywhere, hacks give professionals a bad name. Some here would call topping jobs by "pollarding" or whatever. Also, there is the spiking prune jobs thing. Some people defend their spike pruning with "Its okay, I use short spikes on prunes.", etc.

Professional are in a constant battle to show that we aren't a bunch of dummies with chainsaws, so we are a little touchy.

Yesterday, we had a waterfront conifer takedown with every branch rigged off, where the arrogant neighbor (previous indications of his character from the neighbors. We supposed was a lawyer.) started out with, "How did the saw dust get all the way up on my deck?", rather than "Nice job. My water view from the deck is so much better with the neighbors' tree gone. Must of been some feat to not damage the fences, sheds, or any of my garden plants in that tiny working space. Do you mind blowing off my deck?"

Keep bringing the videos and participation. Skilled folks are most welcome here. Please just understand we may need/ want some additional info to explain the end goal.
 
Thanks Sean for tempering my responce. I can be abrasive, did I mention my Dad was a preacher.

Anyway I've heard the history of pollarding was to create a firewood supply after the forests were removed and create livestock food in lean times. Somehow times have changed but tree care practices haven't.

That's what customers want and who are we to not do our best work and take their money and treat the tree as best as we can. But it could become something we used to do and it would not cause a problem except to the previosly butchered trees.
 
Boreality, are you thinking of coppicing? Pollarding seems to be up high in the tree, whereas, as I understand it, coppicing was down low, producing many stems, like a suckered out maple stump.
 
No Sean I'm talking pollarding. That's the history as I've heard it. Why else would someone do that? Coppicing is how I prune Lilacs and other shrubs, the only cost effective method. That is a low cut.
Must of been tough times back in history to use trees for their max. bio fuel potential. That's an example of how urban trees are effected by loss of forests.
 
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