the big picture

[priest]

There is an ongoing debate on this site about the treatment of individual trees, from using gaffs in utiltiy clearance to preservation versus removal of hazardous trees.

These are important issues, but how important in the BIG PICTURE?

When I receive a call for a removal of a healthy and low-risk tree, I always encourage the client to reconsider, and I have a deep appreciation for trees.

But as I debate on the fate of individual trees in my little town, acre after acre of old-growth Cross Timbers forest is leveled (often unknowingly) just outside town, in the wake of new construction.

Undoubtedly the destruction of this natural habitat has a far greater effect on the "big picture" of our environment, biodiversity, and climate change, than any damage to trees that can be done within the city limits.

I'd love to see some feedback from arboristsite members from all corners of the tree industry on their apprectiation or lack thereof of individual trees and of entire ecosystems.

Thanks,

Nate

 

[rmihalek]

I think you're comparing apples to oranges. The preservation and maintenance of trees existing in already developed areas is very important.

Also important is the preservation of open space. Here in eastern Massachusetts, there's an ongoing debate that the effort by towns to preserve open space is driving up the cost of housing and shutting lower income families out of the housing market. However, the towns feel it's critical to preserve the little bits and pieces of farms and forests that are left.

So, on the one hand, people who want to preserve the open space are called elitist snobs whereas nobody seems to like it either when developers come in, level the forests, and build new houses.

 

[Jumper]

With thanks to Joni Mitchell (Big Yellow Taxi)

They took all the trees
Put ’em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

You truly do not know what you have got until it's gone. I find it particularly annoying that suburbs press further into farmland here when there are large tracts of underused, or un used land in the city's established areas. Problem is everyone wants the cookie cutter lot and the lifestyle that goes with it I guess. Then you have the knee jerk reaction of Toronto where every tree removal of any size reqruires a $100 PERMIT.

 

[xtremetrees]

I got a customer needs 200 hardwoods trimmed out, but cant afford spikeless climbing. What gives? Being a C.A. is becomming to costly for my clients:bang:

 

[tophopper]

I got a customer needs 200 hardwoods trimmed out, but cant afford spikeless climbing. What gives? Being a C.A. is becomming to costly for my clients:bang:

Does spikeless pruning cost less than spiked pruning?

The trees still need the same level of work whether or not climbed spikeless, right?

I price according to what the trees need, not by how I will climb them.

and I'd be willing to bet I could prune a mature tree, faster than someone wearing gaffs. Plus it would look better, and I would access the outer 1/3 of the canopy.

IMO- opinion wearing gaffs to prune is just simple, plain laziness, and really shows lack of skill.

 

[Stumper]

I got a customer needs 200 hardwoods trimmed out, but cant afford spikeless climbing. What gives? Being a C.A. is becomming to costly for my clients:bang:

- That doesn't compute for me. There have been a few trees where I could have accessed a particular lead easier on gaffs than without.... but generally speaking gaffs won't help access pruning cuts-they are in the way for limbwalking. If the tree doesn't need a lot of limbwalks then I probably only need to get high in the center an cut dead limbs and a few shoots as I descend and swing around in the canopy-no help could come from gaffs. I suppose a really good gaff climber can get to the top faster than I can ascend rope...but the ascent isn't where the major time investment is. Pruning and clean up are what eat up time.
Xtreme. I think you need to learn better techniques. I'm a rather slow climber but gaffs sure don't speed me up.

 

[tshanefreeman]

I too quote a job on what the tree needs not the method by which the work will be done.

If everyone was to quote in that manner, the good and efficient climbers and bucket operators would end up being penalized for their efficiency. I know as a business owner, overhead can be enormous and I don't think that I should have to earn less money at the end of the day because I can do the job 'quicker' than the immediate competition. Whether this is due to the 'speed' of the climber/operator or to the equipment that a particular business owns, the job is still the same, therefore, it should be worth the same amount.

I quote on the same per hour basis whether I climb or use my bucket truck. The difference is that if a job can be done quicker one way versus another, you will be able to move on to the next job that much quicker. Allowing you to make more at the end of the day........that is, if you are the one that the cheque is made out to!

 

[rebelman]

Cattle farms along rivers don't help keep water clean. Buffer zones of forest along streams and creeks would filter runoff. In Arkansas we send polluted water to Oklahoma, and our governor and candidates for governor sue you for suing us. Pork barrel politics. We need to recycle our trash and lessen our forest consumption. We could build with trees, let edges encroach more, care for root zones, controlling sediments from construction. I do a little in my small way, one back yard at a time. Salamanders are all but extinct, clay hillsides dump orange creeks into extraordinary resource waterways. I used to think "selective" logging was bad, please bring that concept back!

 

[xtremetrees]

IMO- opinion wearing gaffs to prune is just simple, plain laziness, and really shows lack of skill.[/QUOTE]

Yeah right I was throwballing trees before you was born:angry2:

Can you throwball 50 trees a day.. Uhh or 50 excurrent palms/pines for that matter.

I can limb up about 8 trees a day. verses with spikes 40 trees.
I'll not get the job because I cant spike the trees as a C.A. I am bound to the ethics. Honestly Ill be glad when it expires so i can make some money. The problem is underbrush

 

[clearance]

Tophopper, in the real world of production utility work or windfirming old growth you would be exausted in no time and mocked by all the guys. That is if you were allowed to do utility here, which you are not, as far as windfirming old growth, answer this hoppy, or anyone else here tell me how to do this. Red cedars well over 100', no decent branches for at least 70' and then all the good branches slope/droop down. How ya gonna get your little line up there buddy? Lets say amazingly ya get it around a good branch (that droops down) are ya gonna trust your life on that? Lets hear it, I thought so........

 

[RandyS]

When younger I didn't care what the customer wanted, I would do it. As you get older hopefully you get more selective and look at things differently.
We have alot of developing going on around here and it is sad to see the woods you played in as a kid gone and 10 houses there instead.
I come from a landscaping background and not the tree business but I do try to make sure my customers have an understanding of what will happen if they take that tree down. The good and bad points.
Hard to plant another 80' tree once you take one down.
priest, if you save one big tree at least your kids and maybe grandkids can look at it.

 

[Tree Wizard]

Honestly Ill be glad when it expires so i can make some money. The problem is underbrush

You don't have to wait for your certification to expire. You could quit.

 

[Treeblitzer]

Gaff`s

The only thing that gets gaffed here it dead or removals in town. In the mountains the utility says gaff anything you want. I don't like to use them but sometimes you don't much choice. I don't agree with those who gaff everything,if you can climb them,foot lock or use a ladder to get where you need to go do it that way. Gaff everything is just a LAZY way to climb.

 

[rebelman]

I can and do climb some trees with the bottom branch around 55'. Belting in at the top of a ladder begins the process. I'm six and a half feet tall, my wooden pole saw is sixteen. I'm residential, what's the problem? I'll use a throwball or bigshot over 55. I'll get it done. Without spikes. Bottom line.

 

[Matt Follett]

Pardon me for ranting, but I think the question was big picture, not whether gaffs are faster then footlocking...

This is a hard one for us to wrap our heads around. I believe that we as "environmental educators" can help to instill a sense of pride in "city green" and while certainly the removal of individual plants may not effect the "big picture", the attitudes around cutting things down will.

For sure the destruction of vast tracks of land for logging in North America, or cattle farming in South America, causes far more problems then removal of a tree in downtown _ _ _ _ _ . But the notion that we're trying can go a long way towards trying to change ideals, perceptions, and actions.

Furthermore, while the poor use of our natural resources has depleted the environment of many good things, and overloaded it with many poor ones... the reduction of heat island effect due to trees in major cities is well documented. And if we consider that the majority of our population resides in urban areas, we should be doing our best to improve the micro-climate which exsists in the region around cities. At best we can help to educate our customers of this concern.

As consultants working with developers, our imput is starting to take hold and we are seeing a rise in more properly managed development sites. While these sites are few and far between, I believe the next few decades (provided we don't blow ourselves up in that time...) will show marked change in how we develop properties for urban living, and how we manage existing forested land within our cities boundrys.

two cents, one pea, or a Canadian Loony!

Maybe all

Matt

 

[priest]

Thanks for the responses. Good way of looking at it, matt.

Yes, the thread was intended to bring a discussion about the big picture, the environment, in comparison to the stewardship of individual trees; not about whether or not to gaff trees. That has been beaten to death around here.

 

[darkstar]

tree men

Look at the big pic. We have logging darn near everwhere in this country .

Nevermind spikes . Nevermind any tree actually .

If us all so called arborist are to affect an action , we will began to take [less trees out], on a global scale.

While we waste our time away arguing topping , spikes etc., etc, we could be fighiting the whole -sale, of our forest .

I think as arborist , our time , now , may be best spent preserving large tracts of un -timbered land ;and using ,the already harvested land with methods to harvest wood to keep the forest sustainable .
Dark

 

[clearance]

Got of the topic with spurring, but all I do is spur and top old growth trees so they don't blowdown into fishbearing streams. I am doing something good for the enviroment everyday, doing so much good I can't wait to do something bad. Darkstar, don't turn into some tree-hugging freak now, take it easy. B.C. is a hotspot of logging protests, makes me sick, but none of these hippy, treehugging, pothead morons has ever figured it out. Here goes-if we really want to do something about our continuing sprawl, development, and extraction/destruction ways...STOP having kids. That is the only way, more people=more sprawl etc..

 

[mpatch]

be me for a week

to all the spike less climbers, yes I can climb without them and do sometimes but where I am located nobody climbs w/o spikes, as far as time it takes with or without. A good portion of the work that I do is for a view of the water on bluffs try throw balling 50+ trees a day on an easy job. good luck. A lot of up and down to trim one or two braches. Not feasible not to use spikes.

 

[Tree Wizard]

mpatch - I don't know what part of Wisconsin you are located in - But - there are very few tree trimmers in my area that climb residential trees with spikes.