Reducing Trees in Flaxton, York
I’m extremely fortunate, I really enjoy my job. Sure there are times when I wish it would stop raining, if only for 15 minutes and it’s never fun to get turned into a human pin cushion by a blackthorn. Even on the worst days though, it’s hard to not enjoy being in nature climbing trees.
Sometimes though you get jobs that aren’t just enjoyable, they’re outrageously fun and I think this might have been my favourite day climbing.
What was the Job?
It all started with a great big Ash tree on the boundary of a farmers field in Flaxton, York, snapping out in high winds and landing in someone else’s land next door. Understandably those neighbors were less than thrilled about this and became concerned about what was left of the Ash, as well as the remaining boundary trees. Which were a mix of Oak and Ash, while non of them were posing an immediate hazard (apart from the torn out Ash), they were all beginning to decline in one form or another. No one wanted to lose these mature trees in their entirety, but they needed to be made safe.
The Solution
We had two different options in mind,
- The first was to reduce each tree drastically, both laterally and in height. Taking off all the limbs and the top, leaving what would basically be a pole. This nature pole would be great for wildlife but wouldn’t be the best looking and would be the end of the incredible sprawling canopies.
- The second option was to strip off all the limbs going over into the neighbors property, while leaving the height and the other side untouched. The benefit of this was that it would mean less overall damage to the tree while also significantly shifting the crown weight. Meaning that if the trees were to fail completely in high winds they would be falling into the owner’s (empty) field.
All parties agreed that option B was the best plan. (Honestly if we could of asked the trees in this situation, they would most likely of prefered not to be cut at all, but that wasn’t an option in this case and it stopped them being removed completely)
The Work
One of the advantages of working at farms and building sites is that they often have machinery to hand which can make life so much easier. Like for example a very large digger with a grab on it. Which meant that as long as we protected an electric fence with hay bales first, we could drop everything on to the neighbors side and the digger would just reach through and grab it.
You see normally and especially when working in central York where the gardens have notoriously little access for machinery. Every leaf, branch and stem that you cut has to be picked up and processed by someone on the ground. Someone that you like and have to sit down and have lunch with everyday. With that in mind, you do little things to make their lives easier wherever possible. You drop the branch with the butt facing towards the chipper or you cut timber in liftable pieces so they don’t need to grab a saw before moving it. These things are nice and make dragging brash all day much more bearable but they’re harder.
Diggers don’t have feelings. Everything is a liftable piece and if it’s all going into a great big pile* then it doesn’t make the slightest difference which way the butt is facing. Which meant that Trev, Al and I could just focus on climbing and cutting as efficiently as possible. We picked a tree each and got to work, Trev went for the snapped out Ash which in the end got the Option A treatment as the tear out had caused too much damage to the trunk as a whole. Al went for the next Ash along and I went for the Oak. Before we started I’d been chatting with the digger driver, asking if he wanted us to stagger the work, so that we didn’t overwhelm him. His pitying smile was answer enough; he spent more time out of the cab watching than he did operating. That machine was a beast and got through the waste so quick we ended up doing another tree, just to keep him busy.
A good day.
* The farmers son sells firewood on the side and was going to work his way through the pile.
