Spotted at my local bushcare group last week. This trunk section has been sitting on the ground for months. The main tree (background) was hacked apart, drilled and poisoned by NSW Forestry, but it's also happily sprouting everywhere again.
Camphor laurels are beautiful, toxic trees that you will see everywhere but sadly they're also weeds. The ground near them tends to be barren, they intentionally poison the soil (allelopathy) to avoid competition. I've been told that they were used to make shipping boxes because their wood resisted insects
I've been told that we want to keep it in some sort of tortured semi-alive state. I can't remember the reasoning (possibly bird hollows or epiphytes?), I was too blinded by the horror :|
Either ask NSW Foresty to drill and poison it again or see if we can do it ourselves. Not sure how the politics work there, there is probably precedent.
We leave them standing and drill them as is but thin them out over time. Costs too much to break out the chainsaws too often. Almost everyone can operate a drill, only a couple of us I would trust a chainsaw too.
At home I ringbark them but the visits increase to keep the epicormic growth down.
Drilling is easy. I saw one site the other day where someone had drilled a Tobacco that could have been cut with secateurs. I laughed.
I'll have to share that story, thanks :) I might also suggest my colleagues try rinkbarking some ehrharta.