Talking trees

The work of arboriculturists is varied and specialised. Debbie Kingsley finds out more from tree surgeon and smallholder Bruce Macfarlane

- Bruce Macfarlane

Nearly 30 years ago police constable Bruce Macfarlane saw something up a tree that changed his life. The tree was a huge beech and way up high was a man working in its canopy.

“From that moment, something changed inside me,” says Bruce, who, as a child, had spent all his spare time playing in woods 400yds from his home and so working with trees appealed strongly. Having spent three years in the army and five in the police, he wrote to all the tree surgeons in his home city of Bristol and managed to find some work experience.

THREE DECADES ON and Bruce is at a youth centre in Devon’s Paignton to write an arboriculture statement and tree-protection plan to ensure that the roots of the trees close to this building aren’t damaged during a redevelopment process. This will involve putting fences around the trees so that builders can’t drive over the roots and damage them. Next up is a visit to a greenfield site at Fremington, near Barnstaple, where a funeral parlour is to be built. Some of the hedgerows will have to be removed and, as a quid pro quo, a pond will be installed, a wildflower meadow created and planting put in place that links into the native hedgerows on site. Bruce measures the stem diameter of an oak to determine its root protection area, which needs to be 12 times the stem diameter.

“In reality,” he tells me, “roots will grow out two or three times that, particularly on a greenfield site, way beyond the canopy spread of a tree.”

Lastly, there is a tree preservation order application for three huge beech trees whose owner is concerned that they are shading his holiday lets.