Tree Repot

AnotherJoe

merrydance wrote: »

What are the signs that the tree has/will cause damage.

That its only one metre away from the house.

moneyistooshorttomention

AnotherJoe wrote: »

That its only one metre away from the house.

I am certainly aware of some in that category and :eek: - I can see the damage very visibly.

I've got an nfh neighbour that has planted some trees rather near (very near....) one of my garden walls and the plans are already in place to put some of that root barrier stuff down in the ground my side. If need be - I will write them an official letter requesting the trees be dealt with - if only to cover myself that my insurance company would go for them (not me) if it came to it.

dc197

Do NOT cut it down without expert advice. For a mature tree, this can be worse than leaving in place.
This is because the tree will no longer withdraw water from the soil and the soil can swell causing heave and cracking. Depends on soil type, weather condions over several months and water table height, among other factors.

Wait for the report.

glasgowdan

Sounds like a wee tree. I don't see many silver birches with huge roots. I'd chop it back, make sure no branches overhang your boundary, or ask the council to do so. I wouldn't worry if it were my house though

merrydance

Thanks for all the advice I'll report back was the tree expert advises.

Dan83

I read some where that hammering a copper nail into the tree kills it, go to b&q and buy s bag of them.

I also read that removing bark from around the truck will kill it, do it in a circle right around the main truck.

merrydance

Gosh Dan - sounds a bit drastic. I'll wait and see what the tree specialist says before committing murder! (Hope it doesn't get that stage, but you never know).

Davesnave

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

There are some pretty heavy-duty looking root barrier materials on the market.

Maybe DavesNave knows? He contributes on here regularly.

Dave knows the OP can't put up any barrier on council land. Anyway, that sort of DIY would be useless against a tree that potentially grows to 50 'or 60.'

OP started a thread like this a while ago and was advised to get a tree report.

Glad to see they're taking that advice. No need for further speculation.

Davesnave

Dan83 wrote: »

I read some where that hammering a copper nail into the tree kills it, go to b&q and buy s bag of them.......

Having taken advice from my mate, Nick*, you'd better make that a BIG bag, but be aware that B&Q don't stock anything so esoteric......Mind you, when it comes to killing healthy plants, they are the real professionals!

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]*TO UNDERSTAND the potential impact of embedding a piece of copper in a tree trunk on the long term health of the tree, some basic plant physiology and chemistry needs to be considered. In order to kill a tree, a toxin must interfere with cell division in the regions from which a tree grows - root and shoot tips and the cambium, a ring of dividing cells inthe stem and roots. In addition, inhibition of a vital process such as photosynthesis will have a similar deleterious effect. Implanting a piece of copper in a tree trunk will only affect such vital processes if the copper is transported from the implant to the roots and shoots. There are two routes that copper could take. The first is in the xylem, the woody tissue that forms the bulk of the tree trunk (wood) but also forms the main transport route for water from the soil, via the roots to the leaves. Movement here is controlled by the rate of water loss from the leaf and this process is regulated by stomata on the under surface of the leaf. Materials move passively with the flow of water, although those with a positive charge will fix to negative charged sites in the walls of the xylem tissues. The phloem tissue (bark) is highly specialised and is responsible for transport of products of photosynthesis from leaves to shoots and roots. It can rapidly seal off any injured tissues. Copper from an implant would need to dissolve before it could move to roots or shoots and affect plant vitality. The pH of the phloem and xylem sap is slightly acidic (pH 5 - 6) so some copper would slowly dissolve. Copper binds preferentially to the xylem tissue and shows limited mobility as a cation. It readily forms stable organic complexes with small molecules such as amino acids and appears to move through the xylem in this form. These complexes are very stable and may not dissociate at the end of the transport pathway. If so, these will not easily pass across biological membranes and inhibit metabolic activity. Copper movement from leaves, via the phloem is very slow so the redistribution via this tissue from an implant would also be slow. The slow rate of copper release from a metallic implant would be unlikely to cause significant problems for a healthy tree. As the main route to living tissue would be via the xylem, the patterns of water movement within a tree would also be important in the subsequent transport of copper. These vary with tree species - in some water ascends straight up whilst in others, water movement occurs in a spiral of varying pitch. Several implants would be required to make certain that all parts of the tree crown were reached by copper. In conclusion, I would consider it unlikely that a single copper implant would prove fatal to a healthy tree; an old or already debilitated tree may prove to be more susceptible.

(Professor) Nicholas W Lepp, Professor of Plant Sciences, John Moores University, Liverpool

[/FONT]

AdrianC

If it's really only a metre from the house, then it's almost certainly self-seeded. There is no way I'd be happy with a young tree that close.

When we had a timber garage built a year or two ago, Building Control insisted on a two-metre deep solid poured-concrete root-control wall for an (admittedly much larger) fir which was about four metres away from where the garage wall was going. We took the other approach - the tree is now a large pile of big logs.