It's common practice here unfortunately.
Really, really frustrates me. Big time.
Everyone has massive spruce, cedar, leyland cypress, lawson cypress and monterrey cypress trees planted around houses and yards and on boundary fences.
They all want trees for "shelter" and privacy but they don't want the trees to grow so big that they fall in the wind and cause damage.
After the big storms last winter a lot of trees came down and smashed houses, sheds, vehicles, power lines, fibre cables and blocked roads for weeks. Everyone is in a mad panic to cut trees back so the same doesn't happen again. All the d1cks in the media and govt are spreading sh1te about how we are going to get more and more of these big storms thanks to climate change so that's adding to the panic.
Storm Eowyn in January was the biggest storm since storm Debie in 1961.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Most of the conifers we are cutting are 50-90 years old meaning they either weren't around back then or were immature.
Grants for planting trees started in the 1970s, as did mass emmigration from this part of the country (counties roscommon, Leitrim, sligo, cavan). As more and more people left more and more land fell into neglect and got planted. With conifer trees becoming readily available and often grant paid more and more people started planting them around houses for shelter.
Ireland being Ireland and the Irish being Irish, these new trees became ignored and neglected. Now theyre everywhere, 70+ feet tall, shallow rooted and hugely prone to falling in the wind. Most of them are also growing around houses or on land owned by old farmers aged 60+ who are convinced they need shelter from the wind (hilarious, I know) and privacy from their neighbours (also hilarious).
The same people are also convinced it's still the 1970s and they haven't a pot to p1ss in making them very reluctant to pay for anything, despite being loaded from working their whole lives, collecting farm subsidies (big thing here) and collecting private and state pensions and sometimes even pensions from the UK on top (a lot of them went there to work and came back, entiteling them to uk pensions).
So we have a situation where there are lots of trees that land owners want topped but not felled and for as little money as possible.
Not ideal for the likes of me but it makes up a good 1/3 of my work.
Its a really, really, really stupid practice but you just can't tell these people otherwise. Most of the time they have these big ignorant trees right outside their back door, covered in ivy with no living branches below 30 feet but they want the tree brought from 80 feet down to 20 or even 10 feet. The tree will die after that but no matter what I say they are still determined to have the job done their way.
If the tree does survive next thing it puts up 4 or 5 new tops and ends up becoming an even bigger wind catcher.
I'm not joking, I've literally reduced 70 year old spruce trees from 80 feet down to ten feet and left lifeless stumps sticking up out of the ground.
Younger people (below 40) are usually much easier to deal with, they usually want the trees gone and then plant a nice beech or hornbeam hedge in their place.
Like I said, I either take on these jobs and get paid or the next guy they ring takes it on and gets paid instead. And knowing people around here of this generation (and i do) the next guy they ring will be an agricultural contractor friend of mine who will just sub me in to do the job anyways.
"bad words"
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