La Puce wrote:
Weatherlawyer wrote:
Anyone notice the root damage to the trees fallen in their area?
It seems to me that the way trees used to fall in the good old days was
with a ruck of soil upheaval with a root-ball of sorts.
I noticed a number of trees in council "tended" areas with the break
right at the foot of the bole. Is this something to do with the price
of weedkilling?

That is so interesting. We were talking about it last nite in the pub.
We've noticed so many trees, healthy looking, broken at the bole, like
snapped, revealing white healthy core. We indeed wondered why so many
trees had been damaged in this way. I have no idea if the weedkillers
(which I'm fighting my council about in my area) have something to do
with it but I'm going to look into this!

Or is it just my point of view about the muddy rings the chancers
working for council garden departments leave around the trunks of trees
that are supposed to be in their care, clouding my vision?

We live in a conservation area (my husband put the policy into effect
16 years ago). Since then, the council sends a couple of guys to walk
around and spray chemicals at the bottom of the walls all along the
pavements to kill weeds etc. These walls are people's properties. Two
years ago all my wall flowers, ferns and aubretia got killed. They even
started having a go at our ivy! I still don't know what or why they
spray and seem to only do this in leafy areas?! Are they pretending to
'do' something to keep our rates high?

I walked round our local woodland today, and loads of trees had snapped
at the lower part of the bole. Every one was already dead. Mostly fungal
attack.


I surmise taht without leaves, there is enough force to snap a rotten
tree when those around it are leafless..but in full leaf the healthy
trees can take bending almost to the ground, and are more likely to
uproot than snap. Certainly I saw ONE healthy ash tree that had been
snapped by another dead one falling against it..and even then with its
crown on the ground, it hadn't broken - half the lower trunk remained
bent at 90 degrees ...