The thanks for the responses regarding the poison - I will have a chat with
the tree surgeon & find out a bit more about the poison issue.

Now once the tree has been chopped down - any ideas how usful the wood will
be ? The tree is about 10 years old & approx 30 feet high.

I am considering some uses fo the wood (although the tree surgeon can take
it away). So far I was thinking these possilities.
- hiring a shredder to create some mulch
- firewood as we have no smoke restrictions

Any other ideas ?

Thanks in advance.

PJ

In article ,
P&J wrote:
The thanks for the responses regarding the poison - I will have a chat with
the tree surgeon & find out a bit more about the poison issue.

Now once the tree has been chopped down - any ideas how usful the wood will
be ? The tree is about 10 years old & approx 30 feet high.

I am considering some uses fo the wood (although the tree surgeon can take
it away). So far I was thinking these possilities.
- hiring a shredder to create some mulch
- firewood as we have no smoke restrictions

Any other ideas ?

Growing edible fungi.

It makes bloody awful firewood. When green, it is scarcely self
sustaining, smoky and spits. When dry, it burns to nothing in
next to no time.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
In article ,
P&J wrote:
The thanks for the responses regarding the poison - I will have a chat
with
the tree surgeon & find out a bit more about the poison issue.

Now once the tree has been chopped down - any ideas how usful the wood
will
be ? The tree is about 10 years old & approx 30 feet high.

I am considering some uses fo the wood (although the tree surgeon can
take
it away). So far I was thinking these possilities.
- hiring a shredder to create some mulch
- firewood as we have no smoke restrictions

Any other ideas ?

Growing edible fungi.

It makes bloody awful firewood. When green, it is scarcely self
sustaining, smoky and spits. When dry, it burns to nothing in
next to no time.

Poplar was used for brake blocks on horse-drawn vehicles and on the earliest
cars and motorcycles. My 1909 Triumph has them, they are more decorative
than useful.

Earnest

In article , Nick Maclaren
writes

It makes bloody awful firewood. When green, it is scarcely self
sustaining, smoky and spits. When dry, it burns to nothing in
next to no time.

We've been burning poplar as house fire wood for many years, not because
it makes good firing, but because we have a lot of poplars in our
hedgerows. Using the wood that way seems a better option than bonfiring
it or paying to have it taken away. You are right about its burning
properties when either green or dry, but there is a between stage when
it can be useful fuel. I cut branches or trunks from about this time of
the year, shred the foliage and brushwood, then store the logs for use
the following winter. If poplar is burned about 12-18 months after
felling, it burns quite well. We mix it with any other logs we happen to
have around such as apple, pear cherry-plum, sycamore, fir etc. and they
work very well with the slower burning poplar logs.
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.

In article ,
P&J wrote:
The thanks for the responses regarding the poison - I will have a chat with
the tree surgeon & find out a bit more about the poison issue.

Now once the tree has been chopped down - any ideas how usful the wood will
be ? The tree is about 10 years old & approx 30 feet high.

I am considering some uses fo the wood (although the tree surgeon can take
it away). So far I was thinking these possilities.
- hiring a shredder to create some mulch

Time to mount my trusty hobby-horse again! Used as mulch, timber waste
will take nitrogen out of your soil as it rots, and could encourage
harmful fungi. It would take ages to rot it in a heap with a bought-in
source of nitrogen, so if you haven't got a spare space it may be
better to burn it.

My last place had a corner where the previous owner sawed his
firewood; I scratched it around a bit, but it was a few years before
the grass there grew as densely as the patch on the other side of the
path. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to find a bit of unrotted
sawdust still there just underneath: sometimes they dig up old
newspapers from rubbish-dumps and find them still legible after fifty
years.

Mike.

"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
om...
In article ,

Snip

P&J wrote:
The thanks for the responses regarding the poison - I will have a chat
with
the tree surgeon & find out a bit more about the poison issue.

I am considering some uses fo the wood

Mike Lyle wrote:

Time to mount my trusty hobby-horse again! Snipped


A 30ft Poplar tree ? You could knock out a few hobby-horses with it!

Jeff

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 09:51:08 +0100, P&J wrote:

Now once the tree has been chopped down - any ideas how usful the wood will
be ? The tree is about 10 years old & approx 30 feet high.

I am considering some uses fo the wood (although the tree surgeon can take
it away). So far I was thinking these possilities.
- hiring a shredder to create some mulch
- firewood as we have no smoke restrictions

Any other ideas ?

Poplar wood, like willow, is very pure cellulose with little
lignin in it. If you dry it thoroughly -- give it a couple of
years' storage under cover -- it will burn with a clear, fast,
hot flame. Nice when you want a fire that doesn't leave glowing
embers in the fireplace overnight.


--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

In article , Mike Lyle
writes

Time to mount my trusty hobby-horse again! Used as mulch, timber waste
will take nitrogen out of your soil as it rots, and could encourage
harmful fungi.

Are you sure of that point? Fungi tend to be fairly fussy about their
requirements, and I wouldn't have thought that most species which would
enjoy the rotting wood would be inclined to attack living trees, which
is what I presume you mean by 'harmful'?

It would take ages to rot it in a heap with a bought-in
source of nitrogen,

No, it doesn't. In a mixed heap it doesn't slow the process at all.

--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

Kay Easton wrote in message ...
In article , Mike Lyle
writes

Time to mount my trusty hobby-horse again! Used as mulch, timber waste
will take nitrogen out of your soil as it rots, and could encourage
harmful fungi.

Are you sure of that point? Fungi tend to be fairly fussy about their
requirements, and I wouldn't have thought that most species which would
enjoy the rotting wood would be inclined to attack living trees, which
is what I presume you mean by 'harmful'?

I said "could", not "will", but I wouldn't risk it. The choice is:
throw it away? a bit of reasonable firewood? or a not-very-attractive
mulch which at least one other gardener isn't happy about on hygiene
grounds? It doesn't feel like good gardening practice to use an
unrotted mulch, even if it doesn't, as I fear this could, help honey
fungus or something to get a foothold.


It would take ages to rot it in a heap with a bought-in
source of nitrogen,

No, it doesn't. In a mixed heap it doesn't slow the process at all.

We're talking about a whole thirty-foot tree, not the litter from the
rabbit-hutch! Will there be enough other material to make an effective
mixed heap? It can't rot without nitrogen, and that nitrogen must come
from somewhere. The bigger the chips the tree is shredded into, the
longer the process will take. I'm not just spouting old husbands'
tales, I'm trying to be logical.

Mike.

In article ,
Mike Lyle wrote:
Kay Easton wrote in message ...
In article , Mike Lyle
writes

Time to mount my trusty hobby-horse again! Used as mulch, timber waste
will take nitrogen out of your soil as it rots, and could encourage
harmful fungi.

Are you sure of that point? Fungi tend to be fairly fussy about their
requirements, and I wouldn't have thought that most species which would
enjoy the rotting wood would be inclined to attack living trees, which
is what I presume you mean by 'harmful'?

I said "could", not "will", but I wouldn't risk it. The choice is:
throw it away? a bit of reasonable firewood? or a not-very-attractive
mulch which at least one other gardener isn't happy about on hygiene
grounds? It doesn't feel like good gardening practice to use an
unrotted mulch, even if it doesn't, as I fear this could, help honey
fungus or something to get a foothold.

Kay Easton has understated the point. I am not enough of an expert
to say that no fungus will attack both wood chips and living wood,
but I certainly know of none. And, unless you NEVER allow any twig
to fall on your garden, there will always be dead wood in the soil.

One of the VERY FEW fungi that is claimed to attack both living and
dead wood is coral spot, but it favours young bark and there is
actually considerable doubt about whether it will attack living
bark anyway. It is possible that it follows other parasites so
fast that it gets the blame (much like woodlice do).

As far as I know, nobody has ever observed a case where wood chip
mulch has bred pathogenic fungi, let alone one where the fungus
has consequently attacked a living tree. Worry about something
more serious, like an invasion of Martian slime moulds.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article , Mike Lyle
writes
Kay Easton wrote in message news:XCFUw8K1McU$Ewmx@sc
arboro.demon.co.uk...
In article , Mike Lyle
writes

Time to mount my trusty hobby-horse again! Used as mulch, timber waste
will take nitrogen out of your soil as it rots, and could encourage
harmful fungi.

Are you sure of that point? Fungi tend to be fairly fussy about their
requirements, and I wouldn't have thought that most species which would
enjoy the rotting wood would be inclined to attack living trees, which
is what I presume you mean by 'harmful'?

I said "could", not "will", but I wouldn't risk it. The choice is:
throw it away? a bit of reasonable firewood? or a not-very-attractive
mulch which at least one other gardener isn't happy about on hygiene
grounds? It doesn't feel like good gardening practice to use an
unrotted mulch, even if it doesn't, as I fear this could, help honey
fungus or something to get a foothold.

How harmful exactly is honey fungus? It's one of our commonest fungi,
present in most of our woodland, one of the top 10 fungi most often
found on fungus forays. If it were as dangerous as some people say,
wouldn't most of our woodland be dead by now?


It would take ages to rot it in a heap with a bought-in
source of nitrogen,

No, it doesn't. In a mixed heap it doesn't slow the process at all.

We're talking about a whole thirty-foot tree, not the litter from the
rabbit-hutch!

Yeah, fair point. I was forgetting that.

Will there be enough other material to make an effective
mixed heap? It can't rot without nitrogen, and that nitrogen must come
from somewhere. The bigger the chips the tree is shredded into, the
longer the process will take. I'm not just spouting old husbands'
tales, I'm trying to be logical.

I'm trying to balance what you're saying against one of the main
problems facing our native flora, which is that we've been chucking so
much nitrogen around for so many years that our meadows are so rich that
many of our native flowers just can't compete. the first step in
creating a wildflower meadow is, in most cases, spending several years
*reducing* the nitrogen level.

OK, you're talking gardening, I'm talking wildflowers - but is reducing
the nitrogen level of our gardens really going to be an utter disaster?
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

The message
from "P&J" contains these words:

Now once the tree has been chopped down - any ideas how usful the wood will
be ? The tree is about 10 years old & approx 30 feet high.

I am considering some uses fo the wood (although the tree surgeon can take
it away). So far I was thinking these possilities.
- hiring a shredder to create some mulch

No. Unsightly and will in time take nitrogen from the soil. Mind you,
that would help in suppressing weeds....

- firewood as we have no smoke restrictions

Yes, by far the better option.

Any other ideas ?

Poplar is used to molish the wooden part of matches....

--
Rusty http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm
horrid·squeak snailything zetnet·co·uk exchange d.p. with p to
reply.

The message
from "Earnest Trawler" contains these words:

Poplar was used for brake blocks on horse-drawn vehicles and on the earliest
cars and motorcycles. My 1909 Triumph has them, they are more decorative
than useful.

Must try them as replacement pads on the disc brakes on me BMW R80

--
Rusty http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm
horrid·squeak snailything zetnet·co·uk exchange d.p. with p to
reply.

The message
from (Rodger Whitlock)
contains these words:

Poplar wood, like willow, is very pure cellulose with little
lignin in it. If you dry it thoroughly -- give it a couple of
years' storage under cover -- it will burn with a clear, fast,
hot flame. Nice when you want a fire that doesn't leave glowing
embers in the fireplace overnight.

Or keep it at about 4°C in a mixture of the correct proportions of oleum
and spirits of nitre, and your fire will go like a rocket...............

--
Rusty http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm
horrid·squeak snailything zetnet·co·uk exchange d.p. with p to
reply.

In article ,
Rusty Hinge wrote:
The message
from "P&J" contains these words:

Now once the tree has been chopped down - any ideas how usful the wood will
be ? The tree is about 10 years old & approx 30 feet high.

I am considering some uses fo the wood (although the tree surgeon can take
it away). So far I was thinking these possilities.
- hiring a shredder to create some mulch

No. Unsightly and will in time take nitrogen from the soil. Mind you,
that would help in suppressing weeds....

Only temporarily. It will then restore it.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.