Right tree right place?

Sean Freeman · 10th February 2007, 04:33 PM

Here's another baby, not one of mine, council tree. Heres one for all Arb people this is anAlbizia saman potential size in Townsville; 35m high, 65m across.(Shown roughly by the red arc) This specimen is growing at a T junction, 2.9m form a commercial building on one side and actually in the road on the other. The canopy has been severely cut on the side with the closest building, there hes been minor lopping on the other side. There is very, very little footpath damage which would suggest major root pruning when the foundations were put in, and of course the road is on the other side.

So whats the question? Well if I were asked to suggest suitable species for this location A. saman would not be on the list..yet look at the photos, look at the mini environment created under the canopy of this undeniably beautiful tree. Its not the right location but by heck it is the right tree (yes I know Its exotic not native but our frog mouth owls absolutely love them, and so do I)

In our urban environment we very rarely have big trees included in the streetscape, and both Arnborists and landscape architects are reluctant to push for them...think of the maintenance costs..well again look at the photos, just image this little street corner without this dominating feature tree

What do you guys think???

SF

More and more examples like this tree make me rethink the simple statement right tree right location. My hat goes off to the Council for retaining the tree

, I'm sure they've had a battle or two over this one through the years.

Drouin Tree Service · 10th February 2007, 04:46 PM

Nice tree im glad its made it thru!

Eric Frei · 10th February 2007, 04:52 PM

Couple things.

The tree has been planted out from the footpath and narrowing the street ... see red lines in attached.

The tree is severly unbalanced, may either lose a limb shown by red line or fall if roots building side not strong enough.

Yellow line asks for inspection of limb looking for fibre buckling and growth triations etc ... signs of weight stress.

Purple circle shows cool car.

Artists inpression of possible canopy reshape if wieghting and limb failure may occur.

yooper · 10th February 2007, 05:45 PM

wow man u sure have some beautiful trees there to work on over there!!

Sean Freeman · 11th February 2007, 09:23 AM

[QUOTE=Ekka;1118]Couple things.

The tree has been planted out from the footpath and narrowing the street ... see red lines in attached.

The tree is severly unbalanced, may either lose a limb shown by red line or fall if roots building side not strong enough.

Yellow line asks for inspection of limb looking for fibre buckling and growth triations etc ... signs of weight stress.

Purple circle shows cool car.

Artists inpression of possible canopy reshape if wieghting and limb failure may occur.

You're right the presence of the tree has narrowed the entrance to the street, my estimate of the age for this tree is 60-75yrs base on others of this species that I've had a great deal to do with. So the tree would have been there when the side street was initially sealed, and its retention again thanks to the foresight of the council has been secured at the cost to street width.

The structure heading to the left is the majority of the mass of the tree, and yes as I indicated with very, very little disturbance to the paved footpath on the right it suggests major root pruning when the commercial building went up around 35yrs ago, and doubtless since then to keep the footpath level.

Sure given enough time this imbalance will in all likelyhood produce more serious problems than the minor building conflicts you can see in my inintial photos. But in terms of major limb failure this species exhibits extraordinary levels of internal structural strength through its limbs.

I've worked on one tree with a scafold limb growing horizontally from the stem 3m up, 32m long, 1.1m diameter(asymetrical) honestly I've never seen trees like these, sure figs and oaks develop equally large limbs but figs have prop roots and oak limbs bend down to touch the ground long before these raintrees do...seeing is believing. In the shots below the limb comes off the main trunk (6m back) divides into three and spreads out over a tuckshop paved walkway and another class room block.

In the street tree there are no unusal indicator in the bark,(I'll try to get a shot of that structure today) some fibre buckling will occur with the sort of masses envolved, but again Ekka is probably correct over time and given the extreme weather events we can get the tree will fail due undoubtably to the removal of massive volumes of root plate and the damage to the branch architecture from lopping.

The car is cool, but you know the only significant piece of deadwood is right over that car, and if it were to fall you can bet the owner would go the council for mega $$'s resulting in god knows what for the tree...

If any of you are ever heading up through North Queensland let me know and I'll take you around to some of these babies you'll wet yourself

SF

Eric Frei · 11th February 2007, 09:29 AM

Awesome trees, I haven't seen any that big anywhere.

Sure would be good if it stays another 65+ years. That one in the school was that planted or pre-existing when the school was built?

I haven't seen such long laterals even in figs or poinciana's here. Great shots.

Sean Freeman · 11th February 2007, 09:56 AM

There's such a long story relating to that particular tree, so I won't bore you and everyone else with it but I used to work at that school in the 90's, suffice to say I believe but can't prove that the 5 major raintrees (there are 12 all up) in the grounds were planted by one of the first Mayors of Townsville around 1890-1900, the seeds for Albizia(was Samanea) saman came into Qld Brisbane in 1879, the school moved to that site in 58' so the trees would have been fairly significant specimens then, local contractors that have been in Town for 70yrs have told me about diggin out the stumps of two of the trees taking 2days and 3 backhoes!

That one over the tuckshop has evidence when you climb up into the crown of strom damage from Cyclone Althea in 71, none of the shots I have show much but you can see that the entire upper canopy is epicormic from tearouts pretty cool.

Makes you marvel at what some of our much older trees must have lived through and what they've seen change around them..

SF

Sean Freeman · 11th February 2007, 02:37 PM

Couple of close ups of the major union limb to stem of the structure over the road, and yes something i missed yesterday taking photos a truck or bus has hit the bugger!

Hopefully they won't put in a complaint to the council

as we all know where that might end

The growth striations look normal to me and no evidence of unusal fibre buckling,

in fact the structure above has more past activity on that front. As all you students of biomechanics will know a right angle bend like that greatly increases the likelihood of shear stress failures.

I'll post a group of shots of another raintree just up the road from this one to show some of the more seriious problems that can occur in these trees.

SF

Sean Freeman · 11th February 2007, 02:58 PM

This one's just up the road from the first shown in this thread, on the corner as you'll see right next to a school, plenty targets every week day!!

The tree is Albizia saman again, and has had no proper tree work but rather has been well and truely lopped on numerous occaisions and the results of these abuses together with the enormous amount of root damage due to the proximity of gutters has resulted in a big tree containing many problems.

If the volume of deadwood conflicting decaying torn branches wasn't enough the big basal injury around which much of the structure over the school playground has grown has our friend Ganoderma..

Not saying this tree couldn't be managed it could (and should) but have a nasty feeling not much will happen till persons or property get damaged and then well, don't think we'll be getting the call...council tree crew will most likely do their stuff.

SF

13th February 2007, 10:47 AM

Those are some pretty amazing trees. Gotta say, sadly, that first tree would never fly here in the states. The road would have won out in the very begaining and it would have been gone. Although luckly someone was thinking when they developped my city and they where able to save many of our big Silver Maples ([I]Accer saccurinum[I]) and Cotton Woods (Populus deltoides). We just don't have them that close to the roads. Too many stupid people to hit them and ruin it for the rest of us.
Anyway, Nice Pics.

Sean Freeman · 13th February 2007, 04:05 PM

It's pretty amazing for here as well, i will try to find out just how why and who got the tree saved in the first place...suspect it may have been planted by a town elder or significant person, or has some friends in high places it is out of character for my town too trust me.

SF

14th February 2007, 01:47 AM

really it's too bad. It would make driving more interesting and keep you on your toes a bit more if we were able to have trees growing out of the middle of the road. Though I can only imagine the yelling that would happen after the first person wasn't paying attention, hit it, and went looking for someone to blame.
O well, maybe that will be one of the first things implamented when I become president.

Eric Frei · 14th February 2007, 08:53 AM

At least near intersections you're slowing down anyway, also trees on roadside naturally slow you down. They are often used for this purpose as a "traffic calming" stategy.

Also, it might give people backing out of their driveway a decent look at the road rather than a tree trunk.

If the trunk doesn't exceed the distance away from the curb of a parked car it might be a good strategy.

Brother Colin · 14th February 2007, 01:49 PM

Have you ever noticed that the roads with lots of big trees like these, where the trees form a tunnel, people drive slower.

Roller · 14th February 2007, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ekka

Couple things.

The tree has been planted out from the footpath and narrowing the street ... see red lines in attached.

The tree is severly unbalanced, may either lose a limb shown by red line or fall if roots building side not strong enough.

Yellow line asks for inspection of limb looking for fibre buckling and growth triations etc ... signs of weight stress.

Purple circle shows cool car.

Artists inpression of possible canopy reshape if wieghting and limb failure may occur.

I know bugger all about this species of tree,but imo we don't give trees enough credit for being smart,my guess is, if left alone this tree will strenghthen up in the right areas and be around for a lot more years to come.

The only time this tree is likely to become a problem is when some arbo gets his hands/saws on it..

Drouin Tree Service · 14th February 2007, 08:17 PM

Yeah i think that way as well Rolla best left alone!in some cases.

Eric Frei · 14th February 2007, 08:19 PM

Yeah, or some root cutting, paving sidewalk guy stuffs the roots which oppose the weighting.

I got some shockers for you to see .... but first we'll look at some similar street scaping here in New Farm Brisbane, Abbott street to be precise. Pity about the traditional Brisbane pruning technique displayed.

However the other end of Abbott street doesn't have the same fate. Many a mystery there with an unusual fungus in play shown on the last pic .... note the specs are bees and they weren't happy!

Sean Freeman · 14th February 2007, 09:05 PM

Would that be Fomafillus blockagii ?

Really great pics of a lovely streetscape in the earlier group

SF

10th February 2007, 04:33 PM	#1
Sean Freeman Monument Status Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Townsville Nth Queensland & Gold Coast Sth Queensland Posts: 1,985	Right tree right place? Here's another baby, not one of mine, council tree. Heres one for all Arb people this is anAlbizia saman potential size in Townsville; 35m high, 65m across.(Shown roughly by the red arc) This specimen is growing at a T junction, 2.9m form a commercial building on one side and actually in the road on the other. The canopy has been severely cut on the side with the closest building, there hes been minor lopping on the other side. There is very, very little footpath damage which would suggest major root pruning when the foundations were put in, and of course the road is on the other side. So whats the question? Well if I were asked to suggest suitable species for this location A. saman would not be on the list..yet look at the photos, look at the mini environment created under the canopy of this undeniably beautiful tree. Its not the right location but by heck it is the right tree (yes I know Its exotic not native but our frog mouth owls absolutely love them, and so do I) In our urban environment we very rarely have big trees included in the streetscape, and both Arnborists and landscape architects are reluctant to push for them...think of the maintenance costs..well again look at the photos, just image this little street corner without this dominating feature tree What do you guys think??? SF More and more examples like this tree make me rethink the simple statement right tree right location. My hat goes off to the Council for retaining the tree , I'm sure they've had a battle or two over this one through the years.

10th February 2007, 04:46 PM	#2
Drouin Tree Service Veteran Heritage Status Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,697	Nice tree im glad its made it thru! __________________ Drouin Tree Services \| Excavator Hire - Drouin and SE Gippsland \| Landclearing Melbourne

10th February 2007, 04:52 PM	#3
Eric Frei Admin - Razor sharp and independent 2 X Diploma Level 5 qualified arborist Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Brisbane Posts: 12,820	Couple things. The tree has been planted out from the footpath and narrowing the street ... see red lines in attached. The tree is severly unbalanced, may either lose a limb shown by red line or fall if roots building side not strong enough. Yellow line asks for inspection of limb looking for fibre buckling and growth triations etc ... signs of weight stress. Purple circle shows cool car. Artists inpression of possible canopy reshape if wieghting and limb failure may occur. Attached Thumbnails __________________ Protect your rights to work - Join Australian Tree Association My businesses:- Qualified Brisbane Tree Lopping \| Stump Grinding Brisbane \| Brisbane - Gold Coast Consulting Arborist

11th February 2007, 09:29 AM	#6
Eric Frei Admin - Razor sharp and independent 2 X Diploma Level 5 qualified arborist Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Brisbane Posts: 12,820	Awesome trees, I haven't seen any that big anywhere. Sure would be good if it stays another 65+ years. That one in the school was that planted or pre-existing when the school was built? I haven't seen such long laterals even in figs or poinciana's here. Great shots. __________________ Protect your rights to work - Join Australian Tree Association My businesses:- Qualified Brisbane Tree Lopping \| Stump Grinding Brisbane \| Brisbane - Gold Coast Consulting Arborist

11th February 2007, 02:58 PM	#9
Sean Freeman Monument Status Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Townsville Nth Queensland & Gold Coast Sth Queensland Posts: 1,985	No room, no proper maintenance This one's just up the road from the first shown in this thread, on the corner as you'll see right next to a school, plenty targets every week day!! The tree is Albizia saman again, and has had no proper tree work but rather has been well and truely lopped on numerous occaisions and the results of these abuses together with the enormous amount of root damage due to the proximity of gutters has resulted in a big tree containing many problems. If the volume of deadwood conflicting decaying torn branches wasn't enough the big basal injury around which much of the structure over the school playground has grown has our friend Ganoderma.. Not saying this tree couldn't be managed it could (and should) but have a nasty feeling not much will happen till persons or property get damaged and then well, don't think we'll be getting the call...council tree crew will most likely do their stuff. SF

10th February 2007, 05:45 PM	#4
yooper Semi-mature vigorous tree Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Upper Michigan U.S.A. Posts: 128	wow man u sure have some beautiful trees there to work on over there!!

11th February 2007, 09:23 AM	#5
Sean Freeman Monument Status Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Townsville Nth Queensland & Gold Coast Sth Queensland Posts: 1,985	[QUOTE=Ekka;1118]Couple things. The tree has been planted out from the footpath and narrowing the street ... see red lines in attached. The tree is severly unbalanced, may either lose a limb shown by red line or fall if roots building side not strong enough. Yellow line asks for inspection of limb looking for fibre buckling and growth triations etc ... signs of weight stress. Purple circle shows cool car. Artists inpression of possible canopy reshape if wieghting and limb failure may occur. You're right the presence of the tree has narrowed the entrance to the street, my estimate of the age for this tree is 60-75yrs base on others of this species that I've had a great deal to do with. So the tree would have been there when the side street was initially sealed, and its retention again thanks to the foresight of the council has been secured at the cost to street width. The structure heading to the left is the majority of the mass of the tree, and yes as I indicated with very, very little disturbance to the paved footpath on the right it suggests major root pruning when the commercial building went up around 35yrs ago, and doubtless since then to keep the footpath level. Sure given enough time this imbalance will in all likelyhood produce more serious problems than the minor building conflicts you can see in my inintial photos. But in terms of major limb failure this species exhibits extraordinary levels of internal structural strength through its limbs. I've worked on one tree with a scafold limb growing horizontally from the stem 3m up, 32m long, 1.1m diameter(asymetrical) honestly I've never seen trees like these, sure figs and oaks develop equally large limbs but figs have prop roots and oak limbs bend down to touch the ground long before these raintrees do...seeing is believing. In the shots below the limb comes off the main trunk (6m back) divides into three and spreads out over a tuckshop paved walkway and another class room block. In the street tree there are no unusal indicator in the bark,(I'll try to get a shot of that structure today) some fibre buckling will occur with the sort of masses envolved, but again Ekka is probably correct over time and given the extreme weather events we can get the tree will fail due undoubtably to the removal of massive volumes of root plate and the damage to the branch architecture from lopping. The car is cool, but you know the only significant piece of deadwood is right over that car, and if it were to fall you can bet the owner would go the council for mega $$'s resulting in god knows what for the tree... If any of you are ever heading up through North Queensland let me know and I'll take you around to some of these babies you'll wet yourself SF

11th February 2007, 09:56 AM	#7
Sean Freeman Monument Status Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Townsville Nth Queensland & Gold Coast Sth Queensland Posts: 1,985	There's such a long story relating to that particular tree, so I won't bore you and everyone else with it but I used to work at that school in the 90's, suffice to say I believe but can't prove that the 5 major raintrees (there are 12 all up) in the grounds were planted by one of the first Mayors of Townsville around 1890-1900, the seeds for Albizia(was Samanea) saman came into Qld Brisbane in 1879, the school moved to that site in 58' so the trees would have been fairly significant specimens then, local contractors that have been in Town for 70yrs have told me about diggin out the stumps of two of the trees taking 2days and 3 backhoes! That one over the tuckshop has evidence when you climb up into the crown of strom damage from Cyclone Althea in 71, none of the shots I have show much but you can see that the entire upper canopy is epicormic from tearouts pretty cool. Makes you marvel at what some of our much older trees must have lived through and what they've seen change around them.. SF

11th February 2007, 02:37 PM	#8
Sean Freeman Monument Status Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Townsville Nth Queensland & Gold Coast Sth Queensland Posts: 1,985	Couple of close ups of the major union limb to stem of the structure over the road, and yes something i missed yesterday taking photos a truck or bus has hit the bugger! Hopefully they won't put in a complaint to the council as we all know where that might end The growth striations look normal to me and no evidence of unusal fibre buckling, in fact the structure above has more past activity on that front. As all you students of biomechanics will know a right angle bend like that greatly increases the likelihood of shear stress failures. I'll post a group of shots of another raintree just up the road from this one to show some of the more seriious problems that can occur in these trees. SF

13th February 2007, 10:47 AM	#10
fastlil1 Posts: n/a	Those are some pretty amazing trees. Gotta say, sadly, that first tree would never fly here in the states. The road would have won out in the very begaining and it would have been gone. Although luckly someone was thinking when they developped my city and they where able to save many of our big Silver Maples ([I]Accer saccurinum[I]) and Cotton Woods (Populus deltoides). We just don't have them that close to the roads. Too many stupid people to hit them and ruin it for the rest of us. Anyway, Nice Pics.

13th February 2007, 04:05 PM	#11
Sean Freeman Monument Status Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Townsville Nth Queensland & Gold Coast Sth Queensland Posts: 1,985	It's pretty amazing for here as well, i will try to find out just how why and who got the tree saved in the first place...suspect it may have been planted by a town elder or significant person, or has some friends in high places it is out of character for my town too trust me. SF

14th February 2007, 01:47 AM	#12
fastlil1 Posts: n/a	really it's too bad. It would make driving more interesting and keep you on your toes a bit more if we were able to have trees growing out of the middle of the road. Though I can only imagine the yelling that would happen after the first person wasn't paying attention, hit it, and went looking for someone to blame. O well, maybe that will be one of the first things implamented when I become president.

14th February 2007, 08:53 AM	#13
Eric Frei Admin - Razor sharp and independent 2 X Diploma Level 5 qualified arborist Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Brisbane Posts: 12,820	At least near intersections you're slowing down anyway, also trees on roadside naturally slow you down. They are often used for this purpose as a "traffic calming" stategy. Also, it might give people backing out of their driveway a decent look at the road rather than a tree trunk. If the trunk doesn't exceed the distance away from the curb of a parked car it might be a good strategy. __________________ Protect your rights to work - Join Australian Tree Association My businesses:- Qualified Brisbane Tree Lopping \| Stump Grinding Brisbane \| Brisbane - Gold Coast Consulting Arborist

14th February 2007, 01:49 PM	#14
Brother Colin Sappling Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Brisbane Posts: 40	Have you ever noticed that the roads with lots of big trees like these, where the trees form a tunnel, people drive slower. __________________ A new site for digital madia storage goto : http://brothercolin.pictureyourbusiness.com/

14th February 2007, 08:17 PM	#16
Drouin Tree Service Veteran Heritage Status Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,697	Yeah i think that way as well Rolla best left alone!in some cases. __________________ Drouin Tree Services \| Excavator Hire - Drouin and SE Gippsland \| Landclearing Melbourne

14th February 2007, 08:19 PM	#17
Eric Frei Admin - Razor sharp and independent 2 X Diploma Level 5 qualified arborist Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Brisbane Posts: 12,820	Yeah, or some root cutting, paving sidewalk guy stuffs the roots which oppose the weighting. I got some shockers for you to see .... but first we'll look at some similar street scaping here in New Farm Brisbane, Abbott street to be precise. Pity about the traditional Brisbane pruning technique displayed. However the other end of Abbott street doesn't have the same fate. Many a mystery there with an unusual fungus in play shown on the last pic .... note the specs are bees and they weren't happy! __________________ Protect your rights to work - Join Australian Tree Association My businesses:- Qualified Brisbane Tree Lopping \| Stump Grinding Brisbane \| Brisbane - Gold Coast Consulting Arborist

14th February 2007, 09:05 PM	#18
Sean Freeman Monument Status Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Townsville Nth Queensland & Gold Coast Sth Queensland Posts: 1,985	Would that be Fomafillus blockagii ? Really great pics of a lovely streetscape in the earlier group SF

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