Recources
Tips
Info
Inside scoop
Stories
Tree magic
Pruning
Pruning is one of the most important aspects of tree maintenance at all stages of a tree's lifecycle. Pruning young trees can set them up to be structural sound and low maintenance. Pruning older trees can help them weather storms and generally lower their risk profile. Poor pruning can also cause significant damage. Click here to learn more about the many complexities and implications of this seemingly simple practice.
Get the most from a (decent)
tree service
Like any field, Arboriculture is full of the good, the bad and the ugly. Arming yourself with basic information about what to look for in a company and how to communicate your tree needs can vastly improve your experience and outcome. Click here for the inside scoop.
Dry times & Drought resilience
Drought can be incredibly stressful for trees themselves. Drought can also stress the whole soil microbiome that trees rely on for nutrients. Click here to learn more about how dry times affect trees and the underground world they rely on, how to to increase your tree's resilience to the tough times.
Included Unions - an Achilles heal
Trees tend to fail in predictable ways and one of the most common is at included unions. Included unions can be pruned out in a tree's youth or supported in a tree's later years. Click here to learn more about what included unions look like, why they tend to be weak and what to do about it.
The slow killer - Soil compaction
It's easy to forget that a huge portion of a tree is below ground and out of sight. But below ground and out of sight is where all of a tree's water nutrients come from and where the barter economy with the soil microbiome hums. Soil compaction can make all of that grind to a halt with impacts that are almost inevitable and often fatal. More coming soon on soil compaction, how to avoid it and how to improve soil that's been compromised...
Preventing structural failure
We used to call potentially weak parts of a tree "defects". More recently, ecologically-minded Arborists have recognized that some of the things that can weaken a tree structurally are the same features that increase a tree's ecological value. Cavities can house nesting birds. Cracks, decay, dead spots, fungi add food, habitat and complexity to a tree. More coming soon about how to safeguard trees while maintaining their ecological value...
When a tree's too deep
A huge precentage of trees are planted too deeply, over-mulched or both. That includes trees planted and maintained by professionals. Being situated too deeply can have a range of negative health and structural effects on trees. More content coming soon on how to identify proper planting depth, what the impacts are of improper depth and what to do if you're trees are planted too deeply...
The value of Veteran Trees
There's just something about an old tree. They convey the passage of time and a sense of place. The way old trees stir something in us is almost universal. More content coming soon about what exactly makes old trees so unique, along with some of the special consideration they warrant ...
