This is a bit of a worry. This old Scots Pine has grown from ground level with two trunks.

A few years back a huge storm split the joint between them to about seven feet up.

You can see the joint opening and closing as the top of the sways in the wind.

I’ve tried lashing the two trunks together about fifteen feet up. The strap has pulled them together a bit.
It would be shame to lose such a nice tree. Is there anything else I could try to help it?

Recycle it or turn it into something new in your own inimitable style? I’m sure you have a machine/tools for such a task. 🙂

It’s too close to the wall and you know you need to fill that spot behind the disco 🙂

Recycle it

I’m still in the search and rescue phase.

Fell the trunk over the lane? better to lose half the tree than the whole thing . . . . looks like thats the main leader anyway, so may well take huge pressure of the left trunk?

I’d think you may need to sacrifice half of it (if that’s possible). Not worth a tree of that size coming down on your property!

A big ziptie?
Gaffer tape?

Sorry 😉

Bring in the A Team.

Lop half of it off, then carve the resulting stump into something pretty 🙂

Lop half of it off, then carve the resulting stump into something pretty

Like this perhaps…
[video]http://youtu.be/5761TBvT1Bw[/video]

I want one of them^.

Its only a scots pine, it can go.
Plant some more.

when dad worked on Arran estates forestry they used to use iron clamps that could be tightened. (Maybe in conjunction with a couple of straps above to pull it in higher up. (as an aside – somebody there was doing tree weaving I saw a few where they’d bundled the branches at a young age and they had grown into straight trunks with a twisted ball of branches on top – different – no idea why they did it.)

Bloke down the road with a leaning tree (on a sloping bank) had (sensibly imho) stuck a couple of acrprops on it in the current wet and windy conditions – so depending on surface etc maybe you could use that as well

Could you get a wide strap/wire high up tree to a ground anchor behind the building

?? coppicing – scalp a bit off the leaning leg, scalp the bark off the inside leg (so faces would mate) – pull together and hold – long term

It’s very top heavy so i’d lop off the tops and let it shoot from lower down.

If you’re determined to maintain it one of the modern systems used to do this kind of work is called Cobra bracing, have a Google or speak to an arborist.
It would be very unlikely to come away from lower down if topped, very few conifers will do this, many broadleaves will. Incidentally one of the strangest things I’ve seen was a plantation of Monkey puzzle (Araucaria species) trees which had been thinned and the cut stumps of the thinned trees were coming away like coppice stools.

somafunk – Member
It’s very top heavy so i’d lop off the tops and let it shoot from lower down

It won’t, unfortunately.

If you’re determined to maintain it one of the modern systems used to do this kind of work is called Cobra bracing, have a Google or speak to an arborist.

Thanks for that mucker. I had a quick look at the cobra bracing video, and a squint at the prices. Not cheap but it might be the only solution.

The tree must be 150 years old. The prevailing wind would blow it away from the building and the wall.

Are you an arborist? Typically what is a daily climbers rate?

No, not an arborist I’m a forester, I cut them down from the bottom, on mass (silviculturist), check out the arbtalk website to get some more informed information or try contacting Chris Simpson who runs ITS (Informed Tree Services) he has a wealth of tree knowledge and information.

>bring in the A Team

Nah, you only need tree fellers for this job…

Boom tish… I’ve got your coat for you

I’m with the “sacrifice it to the fire god” camp, unfortunately.