So, I went and got my small tree felling ticket this week!
I haven’t had the opportunity to do a lot of felling yet, so naturally was a bit nervous in the run-up. But I ended up having a great time and learning loads! Plus, for a change, there were two other women on the course. Hopefully a sign of shifting demographics in the arb world?
Some of the most useful cuts I learned were the split level cut (great for backward leaning trees to avoid getting your saw stuck) and the dog’s tooth cut (great for forward leaning trees, to avoid the tension wood splitting from the compression wood and doing a very dangerous thing called ‘barber chairing’ – look it up on youtube if you want to really frighten yourself).
And look at how pleased I am with the haul of Ganoderma (I think australe?) brackets I found on some dead tree buttresses! We were felling the trees to ground level and the brackets were only going to go to waste, so they may as well come home with me 😁.
Ganoderma australe and Ganoderma applanatum are tricky to tell apart. These perennial brackets grow mainly on broadleaf trees and lead to localised white rot, which means that eventually the fungus will decay all the lignin and leave behind a spongy mass of white cellulose, which can ultimately result in mechanical failure.
Both mushrooms have medicinal properties similar to Reishi: As an adaptogen, they help with anxiety and insomnia. They also have anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties, and are believed to be cyto-toxic (anti-cancer). Like all (edible) mushrooms, they support the immune system.
These will get chopped up and simmered with some seaweed to make an immuno-enhancing stock to get me through the winter (and all the associated felling)!
Fern & Branch Tree Care 