Memorial cherry tree

There is a nice memorial cherry tree planted in the local cemetery that is showing some signs of stress on the one or two of the lowest branches and twigs deep under the canopy. The leaves have died and turned a uniform brown, generally with three or four small darker blotches on each. Each twig and branch has more or less turned as a unit. It might be that the roots are unhappy. The tree is about 20 years old and quite a few roots are running above ground, possibly indicating they are unhappy at depth. And then there are always leaf/twig fungal diseases to be considered.

Its early days yet but at some stage it might be worth talking to the family and suggesting that we trim off the affected twigs/branches carefully after they have seen the die-back, and then keep an eye on the tree for the future.

Weather quite windy over the weekend but no resulting tree or branch problems in the village that I have seen this week, and its getting quieter now. Dragonflies and damselflies seem to have almost vanished from the local gravel pits and their surrounding fields by the Medway in the cold blowy conditions.

Branch over A26

Since reporting this odd branch over the A26 through the automated WAMS fault reporting system run by KCC yesterday afternoon, it has been scheduled for an officer to inspect. Oddly enough the nearest householders (01732 851715) reported it to KCC about a year ago, and were told that action was likely - which one of the T&M tree officers also informally agreed was appropriate.

However nothing has apparently been done to date, so we await the outcome this time around. The first photo below is the overall situation of the tree (the interesting branch is the one projecting to the right above the road, the GPO van has passed underneath it):

  

and here are four views of the branch, the second photo is a closer zoom in of an apparent cut in the branch to the top-right of the first photo, and the fourth photo is a closer zoom-in of the problem area seen in the third photo.

I had a very pleasant visit to the nearby householders about this tree, which they had in fact reported to Highways over a year ago (with no apparent action, as stated above) and we just talked through some of their tree issues as well. They are fairly fully covered by TPOs and have a substantial roadside hedge, oaks, pines and eucalyptus and they are also close by a neighbour's very large sycamore. Hadlow Park Residents' Association have a regular five year inspection of all the trees in the development as they have a large number of quite large and old trees - although substantially fewer since 1987!

Meeting the Parish Warden, Dave, and looking through the files

Yesterday I got the email from the Hadlow Parish Clerk, Melanie Stowkowski, that the Parish Council meeting had agreed to my volunteering to be the Hadlow Parish tree warden, subject to a written letter of confirmation. I'm looking forward to getting on with things and had a quick walk yesterday evening around part of the village to get my bearings.

There was a very large oak leaning significantly over Carpenters Lane in the small "rugby" field in front of Hope Farm, so I've contacted Caroline Jackson, possible ex-potential tree warden in the village, who lives in some of the accommodation there to start the ball rolling on investigating that the lean isn't a problem. She should be able to tell me something about tree-wardening as well!

Further up Carpenters Lane there is a triangle of grass at the junction with Common Road some juvenile trees - and oddly enough a small dead trunk hidden in the middle - ready to be pushed over by hand! I'll take it down sometime and ask if anyone wants the wood, there won't be very much at all.

Along Tainter Road at the junction with xxx there is a squat purple beech with a double head and what looks like a nasty twisty near vertical split on the bark running down into the main trunk. Might be worth a quick look, I'm assuming its Russet Homes land. As they took the chestnut at the junction of Hope Road with Carpenters Lane down so quickly I might need to be a bit cautious about over-encouraging rapid felling, but it might be worth looking at. The chestnut itself was definitely rotten at the base though! I think its worth asking Russet homes to consider stump-chipping and eventual replacement, probably of a smaller tree on this corner, or elsewhere, to keep the amenity vale of the area up.

Just by the Hadlow Park entrance onto the Maidstone Road (A26) there is a large oak with a suspect branch overhanging the road, with two areas of divided branch, and relatively few leaves on the main bit of branch. I've reported it for a look-see to the Highways Authority, KCC, using their automated system, so we'll see what comes of that. More of this in a later post! On an oak branch just over the fence a little closer to the centre there is a branch with a 90 degree turn from the vertical to horizontal, and a swing - looks secure enough but might be worth noting for the future.

On the dog-walking field (Williams Field) there is a double header and a stem with a partial thin ring-bark cut, Also I noticed today there is a plane tree in the dog exercise yard itself which is looking sick and is well ring-barked at the base. A very thin canopy and sprouting from the base to compensate. I warned Dave the Parish Warden not to try to deal with it in leaf because of the risk of the irritant leaf hairs getting into his lungs. I should think it ought to come down at some stage, but it might be useful to allow the coppice to develop - and cheaper than planting a tree! H&S may be an issue of course.

While we were talking I gave him a hand tidying up some branches from a tree in this yard that had been over-hanging the neighbours' garden, and that he had kindly taken off for her that morning. I'll also get around to removing the tree ties on the six trees on the Eastern side of the field, the nature trail area.

Walking this evening I couldn't find any obvious damage to the white poplar on the mound by the junction of the Tonbridge Road and Carpenters Lane, although Paula says she saw a branch lying on the ground there a week or so ago. The branch pollarding done a few years ago is now virtually invisible when the tree is in full leaf, and the tree looks from the outside to be a lovely rounded shape.

I emailed Melanie suggesting that a ten year tree safety audit for trees the Parish Council is responsible for was probably a suitable defensible policy, with a few trees being inspected more frequently as required - such as the double-headed horsechestnut at the corner of the car park for example. However more evidence is required for this! The Tonbridge and Malling draft tree safety policy has been very useful together with the tree safety group guidance on risk assessment for land-owners etcs.

Photos to follow sometime!