| Topic: | Re:Re:PS | |
| Posted by: | Elizabeth Ross | |
| Date/Time: | 14/04/11 18:01:00 |
| What is it about the Councils and their pruning contracts. If you ask them you are generally told that there will be a 30% crown reduction. The end result is usually a No 1 cut ie no crown left on the trees at all. We have 2 types of horse chestnuts in our street - the very tall white flowered ones which have been afflicted over the last few years with the leaf minor and then the (I believe) Spanish one which are shorter and have pink/red flowers. Both sets of trees have reached their maximum height and are coming up for 100 years old (we have a photograph taken in 1919 of the young trees) but instead of leaving the height and husbanding the branches so they are lighter and airy and not too dense, they viciously chop every branch with the result that each one then produces half a dozen 'water shoots' and you end up with an extremely dense lollypop which takes away all the light and the tree tries to compensate by shooting from the bottom. In addition with so much leaf growth the trees are taking up a lot of water which is resulting in the roots coming into the gardens and under the house. It is almost impossible to dig a hole for new plants. I have spoken to several highly qualified and experienced tree men (trusted to do the trees on big estates and National Trust Properties) and they tell me they despair of the way Councils contract so called tree pruners who use people who have done all the safety courses on climbing trees but have little knowledge and sympathy for the trees themselves. I was appalled to see a lovely beech tree being cut back severely on Priory Avenue and I asked the foreman why they were doing it and did he know what sort of tree it was. Needless to say he was not sure and that was what they had been told to do. I know because my mother in law has a huge and fabulous copper beech in her garden in Wiltshire and it is my responsibility to find a proper contractor to come and husband it every 5 years. He does a beautiful job and you would never know he had been there. |