Urban arborists in French Guiana

Alec Baxt and Chris Roddick standing in front of enormous ficus sp. in French Guiana. Alec has spent a lot of time down there climbing trees as part of various research projects.

Alec taking a core out of the ficus in the previous post.

let me explain...

The bra actually has a function in this case other than what you might think. This is the secure footlocking event at a tree climbing competition. a challenge for most climbers is how to keep the footlocking prussick cord that is attached to the climbing line from impedeing the climbers flow as they are ascending. Alec.. the innovater that he is, has cleverly solved this problem by passing the footlock rope thru the bra to his climbing saddle. most climbers pass the rope thru the top of their tee-shirt...but not Alec.

Wayne Cahilly

Wayne was the person who first showed me how to climb a tree. At the time, we were both employed at the New York Botanic Garden. He was arborist/tree climber and i was a Gardener. One day he asked if i would like to sample tree climbing after work. I agreed, and it turned into one of those moments that change your life forever. You hear stories of teachers who have made a difference in some ones life, this was definetly the case here.

Japanese garden Pruning workshop

Here i am with Doug Roth, publisher of 'The Journal of Japanese Gardening' and Tamao Goda art director of JOJG. They were both presenting a workshop i attended in Maryland on Japanese Garden pruning techniques.

Fernando/Urban Arborists

One of the tree care companies i used to occasionally work for was Urban Arborists. The company was started by Bill Logan and they are based in Brooklyn. Fernando was Bills first employee and i met him the second day he had ever climbed a tree. I was amazed at how quickly fernando was able to learn how to work on trees. I really enjoyed working with those guys and Bill is an outstanding Arborist. This is a dead Beech tree we took down in Montclair New Jersey.

Taking down large Beech tree

thats me up there, Fernando is down below on the ropes.

King Fernando

a common situation, especially in New York city, is that the tree stump is just too large to be removed. The time, and so the cost, to remove a large stump by hand is often impractical. Ordinarily a large stump grinding machine is used to remove large tree stumps, but how do you get a machine the size of a small tractor into a backyard of a New York city brownstone? If the stump cannot be removed then your left with an unusable amount of space in what is already a relatively small backyard. Then you have to get creative, you can leave the stump at a certain height and level so you can place planters or what ever objects on it. Or, you can carve it. The following pictures show stumps carved into chair like objects.

this was in back of a church on the lower eastside.

Peter Styrnol- king of the woods

Chris Roddick

Chris and i have been friends since about 1995. in the late 90's i was arborist at the New York Botanic Garden while chris was the arborist at Brooklyn botanic garden. we met at a rigging workshop chris was assisting and later went on a road trip together to cleveland for the 1996 tree climbing competitions. we've been friends ever since, going to tree conferences, lectures, workshops, etc., together. i took this photo while helping chris with a pruning job in brooklyn, back when i was a tree climber for hire. Chris is still arborist for BBG i left NYBG in 1997.

Alex Shigo

Me and Chris standing next to Al Shigo, the father of modern arboriculture. Shigo was an unbelievable inspiration to myself and countless other arborists. I'll never forget a lecture he gave at Paul Smith college. On the second day of the workshop He began the day by asking for forgiveness for a talk he gave the day before. He believed he had failed getting his point across adequately, and then proceeded to begin the talk again. The talk was to be his attempt to convince us why trees where such magnificent, critical elements of this planet earth, and why it was supremely important for all of us at this workshop to learn all we could to properly take care of them. It was the most moving lecture on tree care i have ever experienced.

Bernd Strasser

In 1996 i competed at the ISA international tree clmbing competitions in cleveland. The best part of the experience was the time i spent with the competitors from Germany and their companions. we spent a few days together camping out in Pennsylvania. we trained, setup rope games, had great conversations, bonfires, and a birthday party at the end where Beddes (pictured here next to me) swung from one tree to another, back and forth some forty or fifty times in honor of the birthday boy Bob Weber. I was blown away by the warmth and willingness to share knowledge. the spirit of play and invention. They were refreshingly curious and open to everything, and the reverence they all held for trees and nature in general was truly amazing.

Pruning at Garfield park conservatory renovation

in winter of 1998 and 1999 i was hired to do pruning and removals as part of the renovations of the garfield and lincoln park conservatories in chicago. i would often have to attach anchor points to the top of the steel frame of the glass houses in order to work on the taller trees and palms in the conservatories.

James KIlpatrick and Scott Forest

James Kilpatrick, Scott Forest. two amazing climbers from New Zealand who stopped by while visiting the U.S. to work with me in the spring of '08.

Kiwis in Harlem

James Kilpatrick removal in Harlem.

Scott Forest came in 2nd place this year in the tree climbers world championship competition and represented the u.k. winning first place in England.

Scott Forest

James and Scott in a large Beech tree.

Thilo Beeker

Thilo Beeker owns Nordic tree care company in Sweden. splicing rope in my apartment. Thilo has visited with me a few times in the U.S.

Thilo Beeker rigging w/crane

Kiah Martin

throwball practice...check out that pendulum!!

i can't hit that target..you do it Kiah.

whoosh....

Chrissy Spence

Chrissy Spence from the New Zealand chapter, she has just won womens world tree climbing championship week before.

Marlies Laser, former womans European wide tree climbing champion. me. Kiah Martin, former womens World tree climbing champion.

Giant london plane tree near mosholu gate at NYBG. I had the pleasure of being one of many people who have worked on this tree.

Acer griseum

Paper bark maple, Acer griseum. one of my favorite trees when i worked at the NYBG. I had the pleasure of deadwood pruning this tree.

Acer griseum

Gingko

One of my favorite neighborhood trees. this is a huge gingko biloba growing near 207th street and broadway.

Rigging

another one of the things i enjoy immensely as part of tree work is rigging. problem solving by way of rigging, is incredibly interesting and as much fun as any puzzle to solve. in the following rigging scenarios one situation would have been incredibly dangerous for a climber and the other was just plain fun to figure out how to lower 2 enormous dead stems under complete control with no impact to the surrounding landscape with out climbing and without a crane.

rigging for lowering entire tulip stems in one piece

two double stemmed tulip trees. the one to the right with a blue pulley attached is dead. the one to the left with the red pulley is live.

the idea here was to install a rigging point in the live tree to lower each of two dead stems in one cut,one stem at a time. i wanted to avoid damaging the surrounding trees and shrubs. the dismantling of the dead tulip could have been accomplished in many ways. the larger live tulip nearby gave me the idea to setup a rigging scenario, whereby i could cut each of the two dead stems in one shot.

the first part was to install a large steel rigging block attached to a 3/4" doublebraid rope tied off to a port-a-wrap at the base of the tree. all the rigging was installed from the ground using throw lines. the double braid was threaded thru 2 crotches about 75' up in the larger live tulip. 2 crotches to distribute the load between two stems.

here is the 3/4 double braid attached to the port-a-wrap, attached to a 3/4 tenex whoopie sling.

a 5/8 doublebraid was preinstalled into the steel block. using throwlines the 5/8 was tied off to the near top of one of the dead stems. a closeup of the block and rope is shown in the second photo of this series.

the dead stem tied off to the rigging block.

this red pulley fair leads the 5/8 line over to another block which then fair leads the line into a ratcheting bollard.

rope being redirected as described in previous shot.

blue pulley fair leads line into bollard. the line was then tensioned, cranked as tight as practical and tied off. the stem is now ready to be cut from the ground.

the dead stem was cut, detached it floated over towards the rigging point and is hanging next to the red pulley on the left.

dead stem hanging off of steel pulley. the dead stem was approximately 45' and about 24" diameter.

the ground man lowers the stem as another cuts chunks. notice cut chunks laying under stem.

ground man cutting chunks as stem is lowered.

rigging for dead tree removal, Harlem.

yikes!! the tree was dead for many years. about 6-7 stories tall. 2 dead stems. small backyard, fences, gardens, no drop zone anywhere. unfortunately i was the only camera friendly person at the jobsite. so, i took pictures before and after ascending the tree. luckily, there were 2 large trees to the left and right of the removal. the following set of pictures illustrates how i got this thing on the ground safely and without damaging anything. actually, this job was a really interestng rigging challenge. which made it quite fun. i was able to create a rigging scenario using the live trees on either side of the dead one.

the base of the tree.... probably not much support from the root system.
probably...no root system.

notice a large ash tree to the left, and an ailanthus tree to the right of the dead tree.

a detailed shot of the rigging opportunity afforded by the large ash tree to the left of the dead tree.the red rope at top is a 1/2 static line which was taken over to a large ailanthus tree on the right of the hazard tree, then hoisted up with two pulleys attached slightly to the left and right of the removal tree. the other rope, with the blue block attached, provided a rigging point to the left of the hazard tree.

a static line was placed thru the ash tree on the left and threaded thru a large ailanthus tree on the right. two butterfly knots were created on the static line. one had a pulley attached to provide an overhead anchor point for me to be tied into. the other provided an anchor point for rigging to the right of the dead tree.

the rigging point from the ash tree on the left, and the rigging point on the right off the static line both share the load.

this is basically how the tree was taken down from top to bottom