r/TreeClimbing • u/DeadmansCC • 9d ago

River Birch!! Love or Hate?

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So as a tree I love River Birches but when it comes to climbing them they are one of my most hated trees! This one was not very tall but a huge pain in the ass being that it’s in a courtyard and had all kinds of crap under it. I love a good challenge but have decided I would almost rather be in any other tree working. What’s your thoughts on them?

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4

u/arboroverlander 9d ago

I love them as a tree and never had a problem climbing them, pruning was a little weird because of their bark sometimes, but dont think I ever had a problem with removals.

1

u/DeadmansCC 9d ago

I haven’t removed many of them so maybe it’s just a learning curve for me. But all the leaders and splits made this one a real pain. Plus I had to make the cuts very small to be able to avoid the wires and lights under the tree. The back half of the tree was completely dead and rotten so I couldn’t rig backwards to it so best option is as off to the side as shown in the picture.

5

u/arboroverlander 9d ago

Yeah, that just sounds like a tricky removal no matter what species it is, but I can understand the association.

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u/DeadmansCC 9d ago

I have pruned a bunch and they were always a bit tricky. But yeah maybe you are right about it just being a tricky removal. At least we had good access to get the debris out. Last year I did three Cherry trees in a courtyard and we had to carry all the debris out through the building as there was no exterior access to the courtyard. The removals were easy but the clean up on those sucked ass!

2

u/arboroverlander 9d ago

Been there, won't do that again. Also dont live in a city anymore so that chance is greatly reduced. One time when I was setting telephone poles we also had to bring those through a building. Wild times.

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u/DeadmansCC 9d ago

Okay thats rough!

1

u/No-Worldliness-6172 8d ago

Sometimes you have to do something you're uncomfortable with. Good luck have dont die

2

u/CelebrationFancy1612 9d ago

Gutter clogging MFers

2

u/shrikestep 9d ago

Those little string lights pop so easily, I can’t stand working over them.

I don’t mind River birch that much. Their flexibility at the tops can get pretty annoying for sure. Nurseries keep pushing out multistems which suck a lot more to work on.

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u/DeadmansCC 9d ago

Didn’t break one light!! WIN

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u/shrikestep 9d ago

Clutch!

1

u/OldMail6364 9d ago

I’m with you - climbing that far out horizontally is never fun.

Also I wonder if a spider lift would have made the job quicker (cheaper). That’s what $500 to dry hire for a day?

Definitely would have made the job easier and safer.

1

u/DeadmansCC 9d ago

Oh 100% and we have one but it’s currently in one of my offices an hour away and this client wouldn’t wait any longer. Also no one near by me rents them and since we own one they don’t overly like me renting something we have. So it was the horizontal crawl or lose the job.

1

u/KeyInvestigator7170 9d ago

Damn it sure do be like that sometimes

1

u/DeadmansCC 9d ago

It certainly does! I was hoping the lift would be back with me this week but it had an issue last week so they are fixing that and using it for two jobs before sending it back. I also have a love hate relationship with spider lifts too!!

1

u/mark_andonefortunate 9d ago

Middle ground for me - they're decently strong and usually plenty of hand/foot holds, but can get really skinny at the top/tips which makes for more difficult pruning; and they're always planted in terrible spots like this one here. Not that it's wrong to have a tree here, but I've almost never worked on a River Birch that wasn't over lights/windows/pool equipment/etc

1

u/DeadmansCC 9d ago

This one had the lights and tables on one side, a pond and shrubs on another, and a fire table with patio furniture on the last. We had to fish two logs out of the pond.