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Have you ever walked past a team of tree surgeons as they are dismantling an awkward tree?  Maybe there are powerlines running alongside the tree or a delicate structure that they have to avoid.  A lot of people are interested in what we do and how we do it, understanding that that it takes a great deal of skill, experience and training to tackle a large tree as the wind blows and the rain comes down and every piece of material has to come down into an area the size of a small garden shed!  That could be someone’s idea [...]

Using Sonic Tomography to Assess the Extent of Wood Decay - by Joel Gray From time to time we are asked to assess the structural integrity of a specimen which maybe raising concerns for a customer. An indicator of potential decay is sometimes (but not limited to) a fungal fruiting body protruding from the wood or root area around a tree, and depending on what species of fungi these fruiting bodies belong to, we can gauge whether a look inside the stem is necessary or not. A very efficient way of doing this is by using a Tomograph to send [...]

It’s that time of the year so I thought I’d jot down a few notes about mistletoe. For the definitive statement on all things mistletoe’y I’d recommend a visit to www.mistletoe.org.uk run by Jonathan Briggs – this will definitely tell you everything you ever wanted to know about this parasitic plant. I’ll confine my ramblings to a few of my own observations about a plant that I have encountered only occasionally over the past thirty years of working with trees. First, as mentioned above, mistletoe is a true parasite, i.e. it needs a host plant on which to live and [...]

When they think of tree surgeons, most people think of climbers swinging round in trees, wielding chainsaws, their ground crews feeding cut material through chippers below. Not an unreasonable preconception either as this broadly covers the bulk of work undertaken by many tree surgery companies across the UK. Here at Dartmoor Tree Surgeons, we've got a few more strings to our bows though... Yes we have the crews out working on trees for clients (and not just guys either - we've got an excellent female climber working for us now too), we've got a strong advisory and consultancy service too. [...]

Dartmoor Tree Surgeons joined forces with South West Water and other contractors to raise money for WaterAid at Meldon reservoir last month. Twenty-eight volunteers walked the length of the reservoir on 25 November to fill containers with 20 litres (20kg) of water from the stream before carrying them back - a journey of about three miles. As a keen Dartmoor walker Graham jumped at the chance to get away from his desk for a day, even if it meant carrying a very heavy rucksack over a wet and cold moorside. However, this was nothing compared to the challenge faced by [...]

It's fair to say that most of us don't want to pay more than absolutely necessary for any product or service, but is cheapest wisest? The first step is always to define what it is we're looking for, perhaps a television or a car. Or tree work. We may hone down our selection based perhaps on a brand or a specification, and that makes it relatively easy to purchase specific products: a trip around the online stores will generally produce an attractive price way below the recommended retail; wait a day or so and your new TV is there at [...]

Following our post on the 31st January on the benefits of wood chippings it was pleasing to receive a letter from our friends at the Devon Wildlife Trust. We recently donated chippings to the Trust for use in a demonstration wildlife garden. They have used the chippings to enhance the footpaths around the garden and said it not only makes it far more pleasant for visitors to walk on but gives it a more professional look. The trust sent us some photos to show how good the footpaths look with wood chippings on.   This highlights one of the many uses [...]

As the first hints of summer head our way, it’s all too easy to forget the winter that was, only ten weeks ago or so, throwing its worst at the South West of England. If we do cast our minds back to that relentless round of storms that damaged historic buildings and left a gaping hole in our rail links to the west, some of the most iconic images are those of trees that came over, occasionally flattening cars or structures. In spite of the front pages of the newspapers which would have us believe in an arboricultural Armageddon, I [...]

Timber milling We have recently updated our chainsaw milling rigs to enable us to make use of any worthwhile timber that we come across as a by-product of our tree surgery works. This has a number of advantages, both for us and for you: We can mill timber on site anywhere – sometimes it can be quicker and less messy to plank timber up and carry it out in lengths rather than having to ring up the timber and carry it out piece by piece; We can convert appropriate timber into useful planks or beams, either for the client’s use [...]