Curious - Carving out the center of a tree

[Scooter_M]

Hey guys,

This may be Tree knowledge 101 so forgive me..

Now (unfortunately) i have no tree in any sort of amazing condition i am able to attempt this one, however i was curious as to how much of a tree you can carve out and still have it healthy and living.

I know that the bark supports most of the life within the tree, however i didnt realize it was to this extent. Below is a YouTube vid of a guy who does alot of carving when he styles his tree's, but this one was huge, he carved out almost the entire center of the tree to be left with almost nothing but a shell. He seems to carve his tree's out as if its normal, and of no consequence what so ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0PEY0BP1VI

Im just wonder if anyone here has had experience with this, and is the hard wood in the middle really that expendable? Evertyhing that supports the tree is in the outer few CM?

Cheers

[treeman]

You need to avoid the sapwood (which draws up water and minerals) under the cambium layer. Otherwize the dead heartwood can be removed without damage to the tree. This tree has only a shell and continues to survive however the wood was completely decayed when I removed it so there was little chance of a big mistake.
viewtopic.php?f=129&t=18281&p=185269#p185269

[Scooter_M]

Thanks for that, obviously need a rather fat tree to make it work then , cheers.

[wattynine]

Scooter, just in with a late response but see photo of one I did, this has bee posted as "Ficus tomorrows project" if you want the whole story, but below is the end result.
The tree lives on despite have had 3/4 of it's internals removed.
Watty

CIMG3151.JPG