I was a bit broken hearted the other day. My daughter noticed the tree on our drive to school, it had gone over.
This oak was always a little stunted, trying to grow out from the huge veteran alongside it. Always leaning over.
the other day I was down there and noticed a huge crack up the trunk, but didn't think too much of it. But this constant wet weather and the storms have taken their toll. Over it's gone.
Part of me would love to just leave it like it is and see what happens. But these things never happen in the right places, this has gone right over the access to our field.
My plan now is to pollard it, to see if we can leave the main trunk and see if it will grow back from there.
What do you think? Much chance of it surviving?
It's probably worth trying to pollard the oak. If you plant another oak it will take forty years to reach its maturity. Can you use the wood from a rotten or fallen tree? Does it need to dry and season?
ReplyDeleteIt does not look like you have any side-branches below where you would have to make your pollard cut but there might be some small pin-branches with latent buds near the top.
ReplyDeleteMany oak trees have latent buds in the root-collar. It is one of their defenses to recover after wild-fires.
Being a "tree guy" I probably don't need to tell you that the top of the trunk will whip when you remove the mass of the top and the root-ball settles back into the hole. Be aware and plan accordingly.
I think it is a mature oak that has seen better days. I have never pollard a tree before so I don't know about the possibilities of doing so. But if it were me, I would probably chop it up for firewood and perhaps save a few pieces to air dry and perhaps turn into something someday.
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted a portable sawmill someday but could never justify it. I've been thinking about perhaps getting what we call an "Alaskan mill" that essentially turns your chainsaw into the mill. But my gas chainsaw has been on the fritz and I finally bought my first battery chainsaw. While it works well for bucking logs, I'm not sure it has quite the power or battery life to run a mill. Perhaps if I can get my other gas saw working again, it can become my dedicated milling saw. Or I can just go with what I have been doing and just loading small pieces into the back of my car and driving to a fellow with a sawmill and paying him to slab it up.