It’s not unusual for a Tree Surgeon to be given a nickname, quite often involving the term ‘monkey’ or ‘tree monkey’…they’re regularly accused of monkeying around in trees!
However, for our most recent job, pruning trees at a local forest has indeed been watched over by some real monkeys (technically, they are Barbary Macaques) and they soon showed us who’s the best at climbing!
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This is the ideal time of year to be planting trees: the ground’s still warm from the summer, there’s regular rainfall to help water them in, but best of all, there’s inspiration all around – just take a moment to look at the trees near you and appreciate what they do at this time of year!
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Apologies to those who follow our posts avidly….we’ve been on holiday!
However, as many of you will know, this isn’t just a job for us – we are nuts about trees, so here’s a few we spotted in the streets whilst we were flip-flopping our way around the Greek island of Paros!:
We’ll be back onto a more serious topic in the next blog, but hope you enjoyed this sunny diversion?!
We’re almost at the end of the summer holidays, soon they’ll be going back to school, no doubt you’ve been away and are now spending the last few weeks entertaining the kids around the house and spending some time in your garden? Are they playing around in your trees and do you know if they’re safe?
Read More›If we lose them, we can’t hug them….and that should be the least of our worries! Plant trees!
I didn’t plant this tree but I’m really glad someone did! It’s a Metasequoia glyptostroboides in the beautiful Dell at Bodnant Garden.
Back in April I wrote a blog about the possibility of losing our Oak trees to Acute Oak Decline. Last week The Woodland Trust blogged about the impact of losing 12 million Ash trees to Ash Dieback.
Then there’s Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner, London Planes suffering from Massaria disease, various Phytopthora pathogens and Red band needle blight attacking our conifers…the list goes on. When you factor in the pressures from climate change, pollution and urban development (such as the HS2 rail link destroying Ancient Woodlands) you get the picture – we are losing trees rapidly.
In June, the Forestry Commission released it’s latest woodland cover statistics in their document “Woodland Area, Planting and Restocking”. England has just 10% tree cover – that’s one of the lowest percentages in the whole of Europe!
But there is something we can all do to help….plant a tree, or, if you’ve got the space, plant a load of trees!
The English Oak (Quercus robur) is one of the most recognisable trees in England – as a child, I was encouraged to collect it’s leaves and draw them (such an iconic shape) and the acorn cups were obviously hats discarded by fairies! There’s so many of them that they seem to fill our landscape, they are one of the richest habitats with individual trees supporting countless birds and insects and, best of all, they seem to live forever, or at least for a very, very long time. And yet… they’re under attack?!
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Last week was gloriously warm, this morning we were scraping ice off the windscreen again?!
Due to one of us having a birthday last week, we took a gamble, decided to go camping and booked the week after Easter off work. We couldn’t have timed it better – the week before Easter had seen some strong gales and quite a few people phoning us because branches had come down out of trees. In fact the week before that, there had been hail and a definite requirement for central heating!
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Do you know the law relating to nesting birds and how it affects us all when we consider working on our trees and hedges?
Read More›Today is World Poetry Day –
it’s also International Day of Forests and the Tree
It’s full on springtime, you must be able to see a tree from your window, I couldn’t help but think of grumpy old Philip Larkin today – his poem is so apt: