Anne Frank Horse Chestnut Tree

Eric Frei

Anne Frank Tree the Horse Chestnut in Amsterdam

Well, in a turn around for insurance companies one has stepped up to the plate to cover any failure of the above tree to buy time.

DutchNews.nl - Insurers to pay for Anne Frank tree

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Sean Freeman

Thanks for posting that Eric, I have held off raising this Chestnut tree issue here since I've been banging on about it for almost 2yrs around the forums and email lists..along with a great many more famous arb people!!

For those that want to read the chronology of disasters in the care of this tree, you'll have to work through the news archive at the Anne Frank museum website
News archive - the official Anne Frank House website
But a pretty fair breakdown of the major events is here
Chestnut tree seriously diseased - the official Anne Frank House website
The current position held by the museum is here
Q&A Anne Frank tree - the official Anne Frank House website
The pics and vid of the reduction works done in 2005 are here
Photos chestnut tree - the official Anne Frank House website
The vid will take some time to load btw....
The web cam showing the tree right now is here
Web cam secret annex - the official Anne Frank House website

Here's a shot of the location of the tree relative to other buildings and the canals....

Attached Thumbnails

 

Eric Frei

Well, you know I always like to lift my own copy of things coz in years to come when links go dead ya got jack, so here's the video from one of Sean's links above about the 2005 reduction pruning on Anne Frank Horse Chestnut Tree.

Around 4mins and 23mb WMV

www.treeworld.info/video/annefranktree.wmv

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pomme

looks like a fun job pity about the end result. shame they didnt pay more attention to its asthetics. as this is the main reason for retention. from what i gather the tree is not in the best condition structurely

TrevMcRev

INteresting "reduction pruning"....

Wonder why it was done like that. Not much better than a lop job really.

Any photos/video showing the structure/trunk issues they mention as being so bad?

Sean Freeman

Have attached one of the Dutch reports and yes its in Dutch you can make reasonable sense out of it with auto translator, but I'm quessing you'll be more intersted in the two stem photos.
The troubling and confusing tomographs are totally meaningless (to me) and I'm sorry but htat is my experience with picus generally....and yes I do accept some of you will have much better experiences of using that technology than me.

vervolgonderzoek%20Anne%20Frankboom%202007%20-%20PFBA.pdf

TrevMcRev

Not sure how to translate a pdf....

Sounds to me like this was the boomtechisch adviseur (consulting arborist)

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Sean Freeman

Yep thats pretty funny!

For the translate just copy the section of text then open say Altavista bable and paste the text into the box select Dutch to English (ofcourse!!) and click, you can then copy that translated bit and put it into word then just work your way through the text....OR I COULD DO IT FOR YOU TREV!!

NB tribe = stem, tribe foot = basal flare/buttress roots

report one is the report i attached previously
Auto translation of the Dutch reports.doc

Eric Frei

The Ole Ganoderma Australae got it.

From reading the report it appears to be down to 28% holding wood on the buttresses only and decay rate is accelerating, the tree is losing the fight.

Obviously the concern is when will it fall, at current rates of decay they say by 2010 it's a goner. However what about wind forces etc between now and then?

The black and brown areas of the picus are good wood, the green is affected yet has some strength. The blue and pink are hopeless decayed areas.

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Sean Freeman

Hoping to show both reports to a Dutch speaker later this week and ask them to translate properly, hopefully some of the nuances lost by the machine may come out then. For me the picus is unconvincing and contradictory, but then have never based any decision soley on one measure, and I'm sure Mr Werner didn't either. I've seen that many brackets on much smaller trees that are still standing and probably will stand for many years yet...even without any improved care/conditions....however this chestnut was not a small tree and the targets are high/great....counter that with the fact that this tree is of extraordinary significance and you get a sense of the dilemma. Its not surprising that there is so much disagreement about the right course of action, and even more disagreement about the assessments.

Eric Frei

I personally feel that the placing of the probes and the users experience determine the accuracy of the picus.

I also believe that the banter about it's inaccuracies is spread a lot further than it's accuracies ... to the point that many of the published results are held in negative context by those not willing to either accept or pay for the technology. In simple words, all the good tests and accurate tests dont get the attention but the bad ones do.

What a lot of people have trouble with is life ending ... when is it time for the tree to go, when it's fallen? Or when with current diagnosis it's believed too hazardous to stay etc.

The pruning and reduction is only further detriment to the health of the tree, yes it reduces likelihood of blow over however reduces the trees vigour which in turn allows the fungus to spread easier. The cycle of decline.

Personally, pay ya respects and out she comes is my opinion, all things end eventually. But the counter argument is with careful monitoring and works it could be there another 30 years .... and then it comes out.

Bite it now, or bite it then, either way she's a dead duck.

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Sean Freeman

Its always been my position that the people who live there should have been canvassed and given the best information about what state the tree was/is in and what options are open to its management felling included.

As is often the case (and you know only too well) the info we get on the outside so to speak is very poor and inaccurate..I have tried on four occaisions to get a response from Mr Werner but (understandably) he and his company are not interested in discussing the issues with someone living and working in Oz.

I am not saying that I know for certain 100% what is the right thing to do with the tree in its current condition...others who have visited the tree have emailed me both that it is beyond help, and that it could be conserved for much longer than the public statements of 10-20yrs..go figure?

I quess what frustrates me is that such an important tree could be so neglected for so long, allowed to get into the state it was in the late 90's then to have such damaging work done to it is really nuts! There are thankfully less and less Arborists who believe that to reduce the wind loading on a tree you must cut off the top 4m!! Sometimes as a profession we seem sadly obsessed with the chainsaw as the sole solution to all tree problems.

Maybe I'll get to see the tree in person late next year but I have the feeling it won't be there.

Eric Frei

I think Mattheck is more responsible as a single person than any other walking the arb circuit for the reduction of trees.

Another would be Brudi.

Apparently in Germany the practice is rampant, reductions left right and center.

Attached please find a very good piece on this.

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Sean Freeman

David is a good guy, though you'll find plenty who disagree (funny they're the same ones who have problems with me)

He did try to discuss this very issue with Claus, but there was a major breakdown in communication....if memory serves me Claus had problems both understanding and speaking English on the topic which was somewhat disappointing.

Disagreemant and heated debate is good for our profession and industry, we all have big areas of common ground form which to start from, its in exploring the areas of difference, born often out of our different working experiences, climate tree species etc... that we can make advances in our own abilties to better mange trees.

Something Shigo said when he was out here in Sydney or Melbourne, referring to the need to keep studying and developing greater understanding of how trees deal with, grow and adapt to the massive range of environmental conditions they encounter in the urban forest....all of us tend to try to find one panecea, one model that fits all lazyness i quess, I don't believe there is one model as such and as an Arborist each problem, conflict I'm asked to deal with requires all of my careful attention...some aspects of the events surrounding the management of the Anne Frank chestnut do not seem to have passed that particular test in my opinion.

Eric Frei

Update on the Anne Frank Tree: Anne Frank tree can survive at least five more years_English_Xinhua

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TrevMcRev

good to hear it stays.....for now

quercus

Tomograph readings have shown that the Anne Frank tree is about 70% hollow but a recent pull test showed that she can still hold it up to 12 Beaufort wind wich is hurricane strength... The Anne Frank tree has been a widely discussed subject between belgian and dutch tree-care specialists out here. Many controversies exist around it, because some girl wrote about it in a book. I've been following everything about this tree in the last half year or so, and I'm still optimistic about maintaining it instead of cutting it down. I could write 125 pages about it and about how things came to be the way they are now..., and since it came up in this forum, I might have to do that somewhere in the near future.

Sean Freeman

You're not the only one!!! I've had three of the various consultants' reports provided by very helpful European Arbs translated by Dutch relatives of a friend....a great many issues about this tree cause concern...not least the use and misuse of tomographs and their interpretation......the "some girl" you speak of Quercus has been the catalyst for the generation of substantial funding for a great many positive causes both locally to Holland and world wide.

Eric Frei

When I was in school we had to read The Diary of Anne Frank and get tested on it.

I suppose younger ones these days wouldn't have a clue who she is.

As that generation (WWII) experienced get old and pass away so does a little history.

I remember when I was a 16yo apprentice I worked with this Italian guy in the factory. He had this big chunk in his forehead, like a divet, was all compartmentalized with skin and stuff but still, very notice-able.

Once we got talking and I asked what happened there. Expecting to here some industrial accident story wasn't what I got. It was the story of how the Germans lined up his family and villagers against a wall to shoot them. He was a little boy at the time maybe 6yo ... he said he heard some machine gun fire and that was it.

Later he woke and was cared for by other villagers, he survived the shooting coz he was short and the bullet got him on the edge of the head and ricocheted. He said after the Germans left for other villagers to clean up the dead they checked them all and he was still alive and they cared for him. These are the stories that really hit home as to WTF people went through. And to think some idiots were recently trying to say holocaust didn't happen!

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quercus

I do believe Anne Frank's diary is a great piece of art, I really do... But we do have to overlook that if it comes to the safety of everything that is surrounding that tree. The tree itself is indeed of touristic significance, but let's not forget that the original idea of felling the tree (wich came up in 1994) was part of an expansion of the museum from the Anne Frank foundation itself.We do have to overlook the fact that Anne Frank wrote about the tree when safety is compromized and significant damage will be inflicted by it. It weighs 37 tonnes and therefore it's a fairly heavy tree, at least in this part of the world it is... Some highly respected arborists are for the take-down, others however, are saying that the tree should be topped and by doing so it can stay there. They are making plans for a steel construction for the support of it. But who's gonna pay for this? And isn't that money spent on a lost cause? From my point of view, the tree must remain, even if it takes some financial help, but I also believe the tree cannot remain the way it is in now. To preserve it, we must at least take a very substantial part of the crown away, and by doing so, minimize wind loading so it certainly doesn't come down.

From an arborists point of view we must preserve the tree. Primary factor would be because it is a significant, historic and valuable tree for the city of Amsterdam, secondary because Anne Frank wrote about it.

If someone needs translation for something, feel free to ask me...

Sean Freeman

I don't want to divert this thread into another one lambasting the approach that has been taken with regards this significant tree, some on the forum know that I have been irritating Arbs in Europe in relation to this matter for some time now......suffice to say that the tree was significantly topped (way too much taken off IMO) in 2005 Pruning Anne Frank - the official Anne Frank House website
Much of the proceeding decline since then is related to that work.
I will take you up on your offer of translation Quercus the next time a report comes my way in Dutch .

Sean Freeman

As you'll read my position is fairly clear and yes carries with it many caveats about not being on site (ie 10000kms away in Oz!!!) and experienced qualified Arbs being able to make better judgement calls (perhaps) yet some very troubling aspects of this particular tree and its treatment jump out at me. There was no other option (apparently) considered than the drastic topping of the tree in 2005....this despite the clear evidence published 5ytrs earlier from SIA tree statics that such drastic reductions are not always required to substantially reduce the loading from wind acting on the upper canopy, and that utilising the tension test will often provide much better assessments of the stability of a particular tree than any picus.
I'm sure you are familiar with the work Quercus but as the pdf files are still freely available I strongly suggest anyone even mildly interested visits Tree Consult and downloads the files there.

I'm not trying to single out anyone as a bad person or poor Arborist in any of this, I am disappointed that the tree was permitted to decline so far before any serious attempt to remediate the damage was undertaken....but lets be honest that happens a lot here too!
I was much more disappointed with the way in which alternative options for the management of the tree were ignored, even decried as being fanciful and incapable of satisfactorily managing the risk. The management of veteran trees is not a dark art, its not secret nor hidden, there are a great many well respected organisations in Europe that lead the way in this field...yet none (it appears) were consulted with regards this tree till well after 2005.

I would very much like to hear from some of the guys who undertook works on the tree (I have heard from a few Arbs that have visited it) and present their views, if they wished to.

quercus

I'll get back to you on this...

quercus

The arbs who performed work on this tree in the past, are all employees of a very large dutch company called Pius Floris. They had responsability to care about the tree, but in my opinion they did a poor job. Unfortunately it is common that larger companies do tend to forget what tree-care is all about, and money comes first. When a take-down was scheduled on the 21st of november, other arborists, hired by a tree-care society, were denied access to the tree to inspect it. The city of amsterdam placed a few police officers around it who kept anyone from touching, inspecting or even approaching it. The reason why is IMO politically inspired, so that the tree disapppeared without a large fuss about it. But as people and tree preserving society's did a great effort, both by reaching out to the owner and the museum, they did get access to inspect it further and thereby create a second opinion.After they published their findings, a court decided that the tree could not be felled and so it still stands today. Every once in a while, papers out here publish an article concerning the tree, probably to keep the topic alive.
There's a lot of discussion going on here, concerning the tree. But as I read posts on a dutch forum out here, I do feel that people who wish to preserve the tree are losing the battle.

Sean Freeman

Quercus I think you have given a very accurate description of what went on and some of the whys....Yes Pius Floris did the work...and not surprisingly they're somewhat slow to answer any questions about it.
It was undoubtedly political expedience which led to the poor standard of reporting and the poor work, I'm sad that you feel from your end the arguement is being lost to retain the tree. Sad not because I don't accept that all living things eventually come to an end, trees included, but sad because this is a special tree simply because of the way it became part of a hugely important part of human history.....Let me digress a little please.....

I (and I'm sure many of you) often come across clients with single trees that have poor form, have been badly treated over the decades, are surviving in spite of rather than because of the care given them....yet the owners really are attached to their tree, it is part of their history, their family culture. These are significant trees. They almost (some actually do) beg you to help retain the tree, make it healthy again..or whatever the specific problem might be..Sometimes where they live has lots of trees, street, park and private trees..sometimes their tree is the only big/old tree in their street...it doesn't matter to them it is significant, and surprisingly to a great many other people in their street it will be significant too.

As Arborists we often can help improve the health and longevity of trees, we can assist owners with the best management practices for their trees...whoever they are and whatever their trees might be. It really is IMO what we should be striving to do, and yes sometimes the best course of management is to remove and replace with more suitable species.(or even no replacement in particular situations)

The damage done to the Anne Frank tree through the leaking fuel tank contaminating the soil for 10yrs or more drastically impacted on its health. The fact that the tree was assumed to be fine and left pretty much to its own devices for so long may not seem all that surprising, except when you hear the arguements about the risk to the public, to the building...how can we keep the museum open with this potential killer in the garden....shame noone thought about treating this big tree with a bit more care and attention over the past 30yrs...then maybe they wouldn't be in such a mess now?

Many European countries have very enviable tree protection laws (I'm not sure about what is actually the case in Holland) based on worlds best practice in relation to the assessment and treatment of the trees identified as being significant and worthy of protection. For many of us the most frustrating bit of this case is that it is so high profile, yet they have managed to stuff it up...trees like this should be shining examples of what can and should be achieved...instead the catalogue of failures reads like a script from the kestone cops!!

I fear that the tree probably is beyond long term retention, based largely on the reports from others who have been there, and the last Dutch report (the one taken in evidence in the court arguing that retention was practical short term) I would hope that some semblance of the original tree could be kept whilst a clone (cutting) is established.

Why has a single tree so very far away caused me so much angst, when there are probably hundreds and thousands of trees being destroyed here in Queensland Australia? Well this tree was special to me like many who post here the story of that little girl in her diary did bring home the inhumanity of the German Authorities of the time in a very personal sense that had escaped me before. The tree gets a mention in her diary, it was important to her in making her feel still part of a normal world despite the insanity going on around her....odd that trees perform the same task today for many people!
The high profile of this tree makes it critical that works undertaken here must be of the highest standard...this (to me anyway) was not what happened.

I've probably ranted on enough hope some of you can see the sense in what I'm trying to say..

Steve Tipton

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quercus

No-one could have said it better, Sean...

polly

I completly agree Sean,
that tree was one of the only living things she could see out of her window was'nt it? And for how many years? That poor little girl.
She would have seen the seasons change through that tree and it kept her in touch with the outside world.
We had a similar story 6 months back, this lovely old lady lived whom we had done work for in the past had a horrific car accident and lost a leg .Her husband died just before that.
She had 8 months in re-hab, is learning to walk again,do everything all over.
She lives alone and has a beautiful big Ironbark ( can't remember specifically what sort) but she loves that tree. She sits under it and admires it every day for hours.She says it is one of the most important things in her life now and it means everything to her
she wanted us to come and prune it. We could'nt get down there( it's 100kms away and we were too busy) so she nearly got in the local loppers!
I managed to make a quick few phone calls for her to get three quotes from qualified arborists and her tree now looks beautiful.Mother nature is good to hold onto when you've got little else so i think they should do what ever is necessary to keep Anne's tree alive.You can visit Auschwitz or the other concentration camps as see the horror. With that tree you can see the hope.

Eric Frei

Sean, you forgot this.




I'm sure other places, cities etc have significant trees on registers and they get bi-annual or annual check ups.

The issue seems to be that the trigger for arborist action is often a negative one, when things are going bad, the tree failing, losing branches etc.

Whilst it may be hard to check every tree every year you'd certainly expect that significant trees be checked. What if the significant trees reside on private properties? ... does happen. I know that locally I have attended to properties to quote the removal of a tree. I usually try to check on the internet but many times end up calling the council to discover a Significant Landscape Tree Protection Order (SLT VPO). These are singled out trees, that protection order is not a blanket one for the city.

The owners sometimes look surprised and sometimes disgruntled for various reasons.

The issue is that those trees aren't cared for or reported upon, and sometimes people dont even know they have them!

If there was a pro-active approach where these trees were inspected, the longivity and safety would increase. However at the moment they get nothing, some of the trees will also get mistreated so they die in the hope the approval for removal then goes through.

I think an easily accessible website for all Significant trees would be a start, a site that provides details and when last inspected and what was on that inspection. Of course that will bring all sorts of issues out however if looking after significant trees is the goal then you need a plan.

A pro-active approach is what cities need to implement. It's caring for healthy trees that matters to, parking your tinnie there and chaining it up to the trunk whilst the bungs have been pulled and you wash it out isn't the best thing for a tree.

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quercus

it was the only thing she could see, besides high level bombers and the fighters that raided the city...