Trimming trees with a chainsaw

Keeping trees away from overhead power and phone lines is an important part of rural life. So when my parents needed to tackle some overgrown trees in their front garden, I was happy to assist!

I invested in an electric chainsaw to make some previous projects a lot more easily (log cake platter/slab and log cake stand), so this was the perfect opportunity to use it again in anger against some vertical trunks! The trees themselves were an assortment of knotted, twisted branches as well as some thinner more whippy branches – a good range of challenges for me and the relatively small chainsaw.

We positioned the ladder safely, not leaning on the bit I was to be cutting (!) and I did some initial investigating before starting any cutting, to work out where to bring the cut-off pieces down safely. Parents live in a rural location without a mains gas line, so the village all has oil central heating. That meant I had to ensure that the branches I removed didn’t fall straight down and pierce the oil tank below!

The first tree was the biggest challenge, so we tackled that one first while we had the most energy. I removed the various top branches in small sections, working carefully down the trunk before removing the top piece of the trunk. The tree seemed to be mostly dead, but parents didn’t want it fully removed at this time. I used notches and hinge cuts to ensure the pieces fell away from the oil tank, as although this was a relatively small tree, a solid lump of wood falling from a reasonable height could still do some damage to a plastic tank! Fortunately, all went smoothly and the split trunks of the tree didn’t cause me too much of a challenge – I took each one separately and passed the pieces down to Dad who was on the bottom of the ladder below. We left the tree a good distance below the power/phone lines above and a lot more tidy.

The second tree was a very much alive needle tree, which was particularly bushy. This was a different sort of challenge, in that the trunk was so much smaller there was no where specific to lean the ladder against. We found the densest part of the tree and leant the ladder against that, sinking through the branches until I was partially leaning on the trunk! This only needed a small section removing from the top, which was being blown in the wind and getting close to the wires. Half a second later and the thin trunk was trimmed and the cut-off piece lowered down to Dad below.

It took longer to set up the ladder, climb up and climb down again than it did to make the cut! I was very pleased to have the chainsaw, as doing such a climb and cut using a handsaw would have been a lot more difficult, as the ladder would have been very unstable with the force needed to saw backwards and forwards. With the chainsaw I was able to keep my body still and let the saw do the work. Definitely a worthwhile purchase and I’m sure I’ll need to use it again to assist parents – they have a small orchard at the end of their back garden, which is undoubtedly going to need trimming back at some point!

So overall, this was a very successful afternoon tidying up the two trees and providing peace of mind for my parents – definitely a good use of my time! 🔨