During the months of May to August tree surgeons around London, particularly in the South West of London, are increasingly having to deal with Oak Processionary Moth or OPM. OPM is an invasive species of moth that when in the caterpillar stage has toxic hairs that can cause skin irritation and respiratory problems. If the caterpillars get to plague proportions they can defoliate a whole tree. They are predominantly found in oak trees but can also be found in other species of tree.
Our tree surgeons at The Tree Company (London) Ltd are working with the Royal Parks and other clients to control the spread of OPM in local London areas. We do this in a number of ways. As the caterpillars grow they can be sprayed with an insecticide. Once the caterpillars start to pupate they form silk nests in trees which have to be manually removed by climbing trees with a rope and harness and/or using a cherry picker (MEWP) to access the nests. The Tree Company's tree surgeons have to wear full personal protective equipment to protect them from contact with the toxic hairs. As you can imagine, in weather like we have had recently it can be a bit of an uncomfortable job!
OPM has been in the country for a few years now and spreads quickly, we at The Tree Company are working hard with our clients to try and control its spread. With hard work and dedicated workers we may have a chance.
The tree surgeons at The Tree Company (London) use many tools to help carry out the various tree related operations involved in Arboriculture. Tree surgeons need a few hand tools including sledgehammers, stake drivers for planting and the humble axe. They are all important members of the tool box.
There are a few different types of axe, including the splitting axe and the felling axe. They are a versatile tool and are not limited to felling or splitting. These days we use chainsaws to fell trees but the axe is used to split wood, either for fire wood or just to make big logs smaller so we can extract timber from those small London gardens. The hand tools we use take a pounding and they do break from time to time.
An axe head is like an old friend, so we are keen not just to replace them when they break. We take them to a tool merchant where the broken handles are loving replaced for us, using air-dried ash wood. It does not take long and that old axe head lives to fight another day.
The Tree Company (London) had a good presence at the 2013 ARB Show. Two of us managed to miss the rain and attended on Friday.
We saw the presentation by Vikki Bengtsson from The Ancient Tree Forum on veteran pruning techniques. The coronet cut was demonstrated by some tree surgeons, with a safe and time efficient method being shown. Our tree surgeons at The Tree Company (London) have been using the coronet cut in Richmond Park in South West London, and selected other sites, for a good few years now and it is a pleasure to see the technique becoming common practice.
We also saw a great collection of vintage chainsaws with none of the safety features that come as standard on modern machines. Three of our tree surgeons attended on Saturday when it rained a fair bit but that didn't dampen the spirits. The climbing competition was the point of focus, with some good competition and techniques on show.
We will be going to see two giants of the tree world on Tuesday the 24th at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in West London, http://www.trees.org.uk/aa/news/ISA-CAS-Expert-s-Question-Time-152.html. Jeremy Barrell and Dr David Lonsdale will be talking and taking questions on tree safety in light of recent court decisions. It should be fun and very informative.
Welcome to The Tree Company's first blog entry.
Here we will try to keep you up to date with our news and events, and the latest goings-on in the tree surgery world. Whether it relates to London or the nation, we love trees and want to keep you informed.
As a starter, this Friday and Saturday the nations tree surgeons will gather at the annual industry event, The ARB Show. It is held at The Bathurst Estate in Cirencester. The Tree Company will be there catching up with old friends, looking at the latest kit, attending workshops and watching demonstrations.
Because The Tree Company carries out all the tree work at Richmond Park, one of the 8 London Royal Parks (where there is one of the largest concentrations of veteran trees in the country and Europe) we are particularly looking forward to the workshop from the Ancient Tree Forum presented by Vikki Bengtsson, on ancient and veteran tree pruning techniques.
