Calling all resident Tree Surgeons!

[TrimTheKing]

Hey chaps

My mum has an issue with a MASSIVE black poplar (I think it is anyway) tree growing in a neighbours back garden. It's blocking out almost all the light on her house/garden, and the guy who used to own the house where it grows lopped most of the foliage off his side making the tree dangerously unbalanced.

As you can see from the pics it is probably twice the height of the houses, or more, and if it comes down then it will be straight into my Mum's roof!

Last winter during some high winds a couple of large branches came down across my Mum and neighbours gardens, but all communication with the owner fell on deaf ears.

Since then a kindly little old lady has bought the house and she is happy for the tree to come down, or at very least to be hacked back, but she has no money, thus it falls to other residents to fund if they want rid.

Mum is getting a few quotes from Tree Surgeons today, but I said if she dropped me some photo's then I would stick them up here and we might be able to get some indicative pricing just so she knows what ball park the quotes should come in at and doesn't get fleeced.

Is that something any of you can comment on (I'm thinking Reclaimer Tim… )?

Cheers
Mark

 

[Robert]

we had the same situation with a black poplar behind the fence at the bottom of our garden. It got some kind of fungal infection in the trunk and neighbour had it removed as it was unsafe. tree surgeons smashed our top patio dropping lumps of branch but the did get it repaired. I can ask the neighbour how much he paid.

Equally massive as the one in your pictures. trunk was at least 3.5 foot diameter. Around may/june time I think it was, it used to drop fluff everywhere and make an awful mess. Before that in the spring when the buds burst it would drop sticky green bud covers that stuck to everything and stained.

Magnificent tree but I certainly don't miss it.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Exactly the same as my Mum's Robert, dropping the fluff everywhere. Looks like her garden is covered in snow sometimes…

Would be good if you could ask, just so she can get a feel for it, and me too as she has no money either so I imagine yours truly will end up chipping in somewhat… :shock:

Cheers
Mark

 

[Rod]

My daughter had to have a massive beech tree cut down that was infected with Honey Fungus. Initial quotes were £2.5k but finally got one for £1.5k My daughter kept the timber which reduced the price.

Rod

 

[TrimTheKing]

Thanks Rod, good to know.

Cheers
Mark

 

[RogerS]

What part of the country is she located in, Mark? If in my neck of the woods then I know several good and economic tree surgeons.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Manchester Roger, South Manchester.

Mark

 

[Reclaimer]

Sorry, I'm a bit slow on the uptake here!

Sadly it's not possible to give a remotely accurate estimate from a photograph. The tree is hard to scale and it's not possible to see all the obstacles near/under the tree which would necessitate extra work with rigging/lowering etc.

I would guess from the photo that the tree is a easily 70 feet high, if not more with a spread of not much less than that, and it appears to be overhanging various structures.

I'm not sure how rates compare between your neck of the world and mine but I would imagine that quotes could range anywhere from £1200 to over twice that depending on the complexity of the dismantling.

Make sure quotes come from Arb Association registered contractors if possible and if you are planning on keeping the timber make this clear at the quotation stage. Beware though- in some parts of the country you will actually get charged MORE for keeping the timber as the contractor will get no subsequent revenue from the resulting firewood.

Ideally get in at least 3 quotes and be suspicious if any one of them is very substantially lower than the others- it may well mean they have underestimated the size of the task. Even a contractor of my (coughs modestly) experience gets bitten in the a@@e several times a year by trees that are just that big bigger than they look.

And no. At my advancing age (for a tree surgeon), I wouldn't fancy it nowadays.....


Tim

ps: I'd be interested to see what sort of price range the quotes come in....

 

[TrimTheKing]

Thanks Tim

There's a chap coming out at 07:30 tomorrow to survey and price up, so will let you know what he comes in at.

Just to address a couple of your comments, yes I would say around two to 3 times the height of the house so 70ft would probably be fair.

All the rear gardens back onto each other and the tree is where they meet, so not directly over any one house but a few sheds below I think.

Thanks
Mark

 

[Rod]

 

[TrimTheKing]

Wow Rod, that's a whole lot of tree!!!

 

[Reclaimer]

That old beech was good and ready to come down. Well and truly rotten at the base, looks like Ganoderma or something- I bet it had a few "horse hoof" bracket fungi on it.

I see they cut it into nice, "manageable" pieces... :roll: Nowadays I cut mine a wee bit smaller.

 

[Robert]

Finally got to speak with the back garden neighbour tonight.

He said he had quotes that ranged up to £6000 but ended up with someone that would do it for £3000 cash!

We were on holiday when it came down. I set up a timelapse camera to record it while we were away and it came down in a day. The contractor had to repair our patio where the falling logs had smashed the paving slabs. maybe they budgeted for that in the quote!

 

[TrimTheKing]

Update, my Mums next door neighbour met the chappie and did the deal without mentioning to any of the other neighbours! Mum knew nothing of it until the TS turned up to start work.

He's a lovely older chappie (her neighbour) who does all the gardening and odd jobs for all the houses in the Drive that my Mum lives in. He's been diagnosed with some form of cancer and goes through bouts of indifferent health and it seems he has some spare cash and decided that he wants to spend it making himself and everyone around him as happy as possible in case (or more likely, because) his conditions worsens.

He wouldn't tell my Mum how much it was, just that he was "Very happy with the quote he gave me and I shall be paying for it!"

Turns out from another neighbour that it was £1600, so based on experiences on here a very reasonable price by the looks of things.

Anyway, a few more photo's to come when Mum sends me them, but here's one for comparison versus the before shot from a similar angle…Both taken on similarly clear days, so you can see the difference it has made to light and air to my Mum's house, amazing!





Cheers
Mark

 

[AndyP]

Excellent.
Big trees like that should be left to grow in the forest. They should never have been planted in suburban gardens in the first place.
Will you be able to use any of the wood?

 

[TrimTheKing]

Well what they did Andy was something called Pollarding, which seems to be what you can see in the picture. Apparently that can be done without permits for removal etc, but full removal of the tree cannot.

The guy said to the neighbour that "What you do with the tree after that is out of my control…"

They took away all the removed material from the crown and what you see there is what remains. I guess at some point me and one of the other neighbours will look to bring down some of the bigger branches and the trunk to ground level, so at that point I will see what I can do with some of those bigger lumps of timber…

Cheers
Mark

 

[AndyP]

Little doubt then that it will grow back unless you are able to prune a bit more off.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Little doubt then that it will grow back unless you are able to prune a bit more off.

Needs must Andy, needs must!

 

[Rod]

A long handled pruner Mark whenever you visit - cut off the new growth?

Rod