Some work this week on the fallen ash tree that is snagged up on another tree. I initially thought that it was stuck on a large neighbouring turkey oak but a closer inspection shows that it is actually entangled in three separate wild cherry trees.
I also noticed that there was a healthy hazel tree stuck underneath the tree which would very likely be ripped out of the ground once the main ash trunk fell. So the first job was to coppice the hazel and ensure that it would survive the felling of the ash tree and be a part of the restored hazel coppice. There are very few surviving stools so I can ill afford to lose any. Here are the before and after shots.
The stool will need to be taken down even closer to the ground before the spring but for now it is fine. I have optimistically left one thin stem and will try to layer this as part of the later work. This layering will involve partially cutting the stem and bending it onto the ground and pinning it down. Here the buds sensing that they are under the soil should become roots and eventually become a self sustained plant.
The base of the fallen ash is still attached to the main root by a thin hinge of wood and looks very precarious.
However, the strength that is retained within an apparently slender hinge of wood is astonishing.
Even with the leverage of the winch cable half way up the main stem there was absolutely no movement in the hinge. Rather optimistically, it now proves, I was hoping that there would be some give at the hinge. I imagined that the turning force would tear through the remaining stands and that I could at least get that end on the ground. But despite the 1.6 tonne pulling force and the mechanical advantage – nothing happened. I think this was mainly due to the top end of the tree being laterally constrained by the trees it was snagged on so preventing anything but the slightest twisting action at the hinge end. However pulling the trunk did pull one of the cherry trees further out of the ground. This is not a great loss as I was intending to remove these as part of the coppice work anyway.
And still the ash hung on there. Ran out of time during the week so will come back and finish the job later on. Who knows, with the remnants of storm Callum and the forecast high wind the situation may alter all by itself.
More next time.
Tim Burr 