Collegealexandra pollard

Much has been written about crape murder and the practice of “topping” trees. Unfortunately, at this time of year, the work of tree hackers, both professional and layman, is evident just about everywhere in the community.Over the course of the past year and a half, I’ve fielded a few questions about pruning. More recently, I advised a writer against “topping” a maple next to her house. And this week, a reader asked about the practice of “pollarding” and how this differs from topping.“Topping” is the removal of a terminal shoot back to a point where there is no lateral branch to take over the terminal role in the plant’s architecture. In addition to ruining plant aesthetics, the practice of topping can lead to health issues like nutrient stress, sun damage, insect and disease attacks. At the very best, the result is an odd-looking, high-maintenance tree that requires yearly pruning.Reduction cutting, drop-crouching and thinning … [Read more...] about Gardening Q & A: We know about crape murder, but what about pollarding and coppicing?

MONTHS ago, the idiots who run BBC1’s drama department heard writer Abi Morgan pitch her idea for a series about “the female-dominated world of divorce lawyers”. But not a single word that followed. Not even the bit about “divorce lawyers”. She could’ve told them she’d cast Zippy, George and Bungle in the main roles and they still wouldn’t have been listening. By that point, it was already “Go! Go! Go!” for The Split, which succeeds in doing the only thing the BBC really cares about passionately these days — politically correct box-ticking — but fails in every other respect, including the most obvious one. It’s the wrong subject. Even those of us who’ve never needed one instinctively hate divorce lawyers, especially the rich, right-on London variety. So attempting to humanise them, in the space of six episodes, is like setting off up Mount Everest in a pair of flip-flops. Suffice to say this one … [Read more...] about Smug legal drama The Split made me file a motion over bad plot and terrible casting