Give Your Trees What They Need
Most of us don’t think of trees as “needy” which is understandable considering they seem to grow unassisted in natural forests all all over the globe. However, trees in urban settings are much different than in forests. Forests are often found with unaltered porous well drained soils mulched with multiple inches of leaf litter and a community of adjacent trees for protection and develop an upright habit. Conversely, urban trees are often planted singly into compacted, poorly drained soils, must compete for nutrients with turf (and sprayed with herbicides) and develop more horizontal branching.
These all combine to cause stress and vulnerabilities which require intentional management. Holistic tree health care can be broken down into (3) major management components, which we call the tree protection triangle.
Give Your Trees What They Need
Most of us don’t think of trees as “needy” which is understandable considering they seem to grow unassisted in natural forests all all over the globe. However, trees in urban settings are much different than in forests. Forests are often found with unaltered porous well drained soils mulched with multiple inches of leaf litter and a community of adjacent trees for protection and develop an upright habit. Conversely, urban trees are often planted singly into compacted, poorly drained soils, must compete for nutrients with turf (and sprayed with herbicides) and develop more horizontal branching.
These all combine to cause stress and vulnerabilities which require intentional management. Holistic tree health care can be broken down into (3) major management components, which we call the tree protection triangle.
Growth Management
Trees in the urban landscape can become vulnerable to loss from improper or excessive growth. Managing growth with skilled physical pruning, support systems, or with chemical growth regulators is a vital component of tree protection.
Pest
Management
The outdoor world is full of biotic things. Both seen or the unseen carried in the wind. While majority are beneficial, some have “chosen” to take a more sinister path to survival and can kill decade old trees in a few months.
Nutrition Management
Just like us, trees can be lost to unmet nutritional needs directly or by causing weakened resistance and vulnerability to biotic pests. We have the experience, skills and tools to identify and treat nutritional deficiencies for good health for each individual tree.
Our Approach to Tree Protection
Our approach to tree care- specifically to tree protection has been a 30 year evolution. To summarize into one word, it is probably best described as PROACTIVE. The current and traditional culture of tree care is more reactive:
– A tree branch or entire tree fails? Call someone to prune or remove it…often at great cost.
– A tree gets “sick”? Begin the search to find someone you trust to accurately diagnose and effectively treat it or pronounce it beyond hope and remove it…again often at a great financial and emotional cost.
This reactive approach can work, but to us there is a better way…a much better way. We call it TreeKeeper, which at its core has only two rational and simple steps that require time and knowledge to complete, but are vital for an effective tree protection strategy.
