Every so often, in any job, a day or a project comes along that reminds you why you do what you do.
I recently got asked to look at one tree, an ash on the edge of an urban woodland. To one side, a footpath and a nursery... not exactly low targets. The tree had been down for a fell, until an ecologist poked around the many cavities and noticed an owl sat inside. Hence the call to our company, to see if we could do anything to retain the tree as habitat whilst making it safe.
The tree was in a pretty bad way, as you'd expect for one that was condemned. It had open cavities all the way up the stem, and most likely a column of decay joining these all up. Cankers had caused further structural damage to the scaffold limbs.
But luckily, the tree was leaning significantly into the woods and away from the nearby targets. So that was a start.
The solution, or so I feel, is to accentuate the tree's lean into the woods by reducing the more vertical limbs in the crown. I recommended this be done by fracture pruning or coronet cuts, to give the tree that ragged look it would have if limbs were shed naturally; it will also expose more wood at the wound areas, providing niches and habitats. Since the tree is obviously on its way out anyway, I don't feel like this rather rough treatment will be of massive detriment to it's health.
By reducing the limbs this way, it brings them more in line with the canopy height of surrounding, younger trees, reducing the chance of any wind blowing over the woods towards the targets catching them and causing failure of the scaffold limbs - which could, in theory, impact the path. By accentuating the lean, and thus weighting the tree even more so into the woods, I think failure on the stem or at the base will result in the tree falling away from targets.
Hopefully, this will allow the tree to remain standing, providing habitat for all its inhabitants and dependents, whilst reducing the threat it poses to human lives. Just the kind of work I got into this all for.
