Last weekend I was mostly trimming the little holly bush at the back of the garden.
Actually there are a couple of inaccuracies in that statement.
Firstly, although it’s at the back of our garden, it’s actually in a neighbours garden. It’s not ours.
Secondly, it’s not a little holly bush. It’s a huge tree that’s totally out of control. It blocks a fair bit of light from our garden which is why it needs a bit of love.
Two years ago I put a ladder up and cut about 15 feet off the top which improved matters but it left some straggly bits that I couldn’t reach. It needed a more serious attack… Hopefully to remove the bits sticking out and hopefully to reduce the height and volume a bit more.
So this is the target.
That’s my triple extension ladder. The first section to get on the shed roof and the other 2 sections up the tree. It’s about the height of the ridge line of the house. However far up it is, it’s about three times as far down when you are up there. And remember this is AFTER I took a load off the top the other year.
The previous trimming was done from the ladder. But there was a fair bit that was out of reach. Although the ladder appears to be against the trunk it’s not. It’s actually a branch that comes off near the bottom and then goes vertically upwards. The trunk is about 6 feet further into the tree. This time the plan was to climb the trunk and see what I could get to.
The ladder went up mainly to get my climbing ropes anchored.
There have been a few hold ups to be fair. Progress has been sluggish. For safety’s sake I’m using a battery chain saw when I’m up the tree. It’s light and doesn’t require starting and stuff… But there has been some hold ups waiting for the battery to recharge.
There has been some problems with the local wildlife too.
Hang on, what’s that patrolling for birdies? (I was half way up when I took this photo.)
Hello puss!
Not sure who this little thing is. She turned up recently and is very friendly. Comes into the house, purrs, and demands a fuss. It was a bit of a surprise to come face to face with her at the top of the tree though.
“Good God! There is a cat up here!” I said.
“Oh my!” She exclaimed. “What the hell’s a monkey doing up here?”
But mostly the delays have been getting confident working at height and the fact that I’m exhausted. Much respect to the people who do this for a living. They must be seriously fit.
Now I’ve been up the trunk I can see the tree has had some history. At some point, I’ve no idea when, the tree was topped. But this seems to have caused it to sprout off just under where it was cut and up it went again. It also started putting effort into a fleet of vertical branches from lower down so effectively it now has 4 trunks coming off the main one at various heights. Think of it as a super sized bush and you’ll get the idea.
An example of the process…
See this spindly little bit?
Well I can’t just cut it off. If I do that it’ll fall into the canopy which is so thick that it’ll be stuck up there for ever.
So climb the tree with a rope and a length of metal pipe. Tie rope to branch. Tie pipe to the other end of the rope and (carefully, ‘cos I don’t want to fall out of the tree) toss the pipe out of the tree.
Repeat several times because the pipe just lands in the canopy so it takes a few goes to get it on the ground.
Bottom of the rope is rigged with some climbing pulleys (to make it an easier pull) to a strop round another tree and pulled tight.
Back up the tree and I have to prune out a couple of little branches to get access to where I want to cut. They both need roping and dragging out of the tree so it's back to the bottom again to pull them down. (Nothing falls out of this tree. Hopefully including me.)
Now it's back up the tree and I can finally cut the spindly branch I want rid of. Predictably it lands in the canopy and sits there.
Back down the tree and pull on the rope to pull it out. So this is me AND the missus with a block and tackle and it is still stuck in the canopy. I seriously have bruises on my hands and arms from wrapping the ropes round them.
To get this one branch down we pulled the rope as much as we could, tied it off, and then both hung ourselves over the rope and bounced on it until we finally dragged it out.
Annoyingly it came down in my neighbours garden rather than where I wanted it, but I’m just relieved that it’s down.
Here it is. One end on the floor, the other still in the tree.
That pathetic, spindly little twig of a branch is 15 feet long and the end I cut is as thick as my leg! It’s so big that if we’d just pulled it into the garden we’d have trashed a load of my neighbours plants. So it got cut into sections with the pole pruner. (When I eventually got the damn thing to run properly.)
Wow, look at that ar$e!
(Note to self - Rephrase that, it could be misinterpreted…)
And here it is, one insignificant little branch remember, cluttering up my neighbours garden.
Repeat many times over for the whole tree…
We’ll be at it again this weekend if the weather is ok.
I think I might be mad.
and whilst you are ok with them nicking your ripped squares of recycled newspaper you don't want the scum thieving your coal 
