Bulblog 4 cutting down trees

[Joakim B]

Thanks for a nice bulblog with colourful plants  
Maybe this will be the chicken teaching the hen to lay eggs but may I suggest that You leave much more of the stem of the tree when cutting down. This will help when removing it.
We have previously cut the trees all the way down to the ground and then excavated around the roots in a quite wide area to be able to also get the central pole root and cut it of.
Now we are cutting i so that we have 2 meter or so of stem to have rope and tile and have the other end around an other three. We can then make the hole smaller and only cut and remove (part of) all the side roots and just dig around the pole root. That is broken by rope and tile As well as leaning and pushing (to make it even quicker. This has made the soil damage less and if it is done when the ground are semi frosen it will be even less. It is then harder to dig so pros and cons to everything.
the root bits going away from the stem is only removed if it is easy or if it is necessary  .
This way of cutting down trees saves a lot of work and now we only cut the trees all the way down if we do not want to remove the stump.

Thanks for an interesting theme and maybe others have even better suggestions or ideas views on this.

All the best
Joakim

[Maggi Young]

Yes. Joakim, you are quite right.... we always leave a good "leg" when cutting down a tree, to allow for leverage in removing the stump ... if you do not do that, then the task will be even bigger worse than if you do have a good lever to work with, and even then it may not be that easy..... some trees have a bigger hold on the earth than others, I have discovered over the years!  Lilac, for instance..... I never want to dig out an old lilac tree as long as I live!

We are almost 100% certain, in this case, that we will NOT remove the stump, maybe not even  by digging later.....(it is for reasons of the position of the tree).... we will experiment to see how things go...... that is why Ian has taken the tree right down to the soil level this time.

[mark smyth]

no food for waxwings, Maggi

[Joakim B]

I know from Hungary and thick clay that some trees stumps are broken down quite quickly and with a bit of beating with ax or sledge pieces comes away easily. I think that the stumps are from acacia trees that are dead (that may take a while since they send new shoots) are broken down by aging and let violence and nature have a combined go at it.

Regarding lilacs my fathers pride in the garden was a lilac tree that we never managed to take cuttings of that broke in a storm and is now shooting new from the lying stem and and also from the root. Hopefully they will be the same as it was before, at least some of the new shoots.

All the best
Joakim

[annew]

Beautiful and interesting daffodills! 

[Maggi Young]

Mark, the assorted thrushes had had a lot of the berries already and the wood pigeon is eating the rest  from the cut tree from the compost heap! There are lots of other berries here for the waxwings....still a couple of trees with good fruit left, the rest are eaten already.