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On Preservation: When Decay Is Not A Death Sentence

6/28/2014

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There is a trend in tree work to default to the most conservative answer when it comes to risk. We decide whether a tree should live or die based on the assumption that any defect makes the tree unsound and that makes it likely to cause major damage to life and property. This attitude may be motivated by the desire to stay out of court, by the desire to win more lucrative removal contracts or by genuine concern for public safety. But extend this attitude to its logical conclusion and we're left with a short, bleak urban canopy.

Let me back up...

This April, I got an email through my website seeking a second opinion. A neighborhood tree company had been knocking on doors and had insisted that a large, mature tree in Lakewood needed to be removed. The solicitor misidentified the Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) as a Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum), but he did spot the massive section of decay in the lower trunk and marked it as a point of concern.

When I arrived on the property, two things were immediately clear. First, the tree was indeed at risk of partial failure. Second, the tree was a focal point of the property. It was the client's pride and had been a major reason for the purchase of the home! Despite the split in the stem from an old lighting strike slowly creaking in the spring wind, I knew I needed to find a way to keep the Hackberry around for a few more years if I could. I spent more than an hour pacing beneath that ponderous canopy, sucking air through my teeth and trying to picture the physics at work. Here was an overextended canopy over the home. There was an 8" wound more than 10 years old where someone had removed a central leader. Here was a branch base beginning to buckle with the forces being exerted on its calloused, partially-decayed stem attachment.

But I also saw very encouraging signs. While the cavity and splitting were considerable, there was ample sound wood and callous holding things together. The tree had begun leafing out right on time for a Hackberry and was producing vigorous shoots throughout its crown, indicating that the tree's overall health was good.

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The principal problem was the split where one of the major leaders attached to the main stem.  The leader in danger of failing extended over the driveway and partially overhung the neighbor's yard.  By  looking at the angles in question, I felt it would be possible to shorten the branch so that, in the event of failure, any damage to the neighbor's property would be minimized.  At the same time, careful shortening of the limb would lessen the leverage acting on the weak section of trunk, lessening the likelihood of failure.  Of course, the client would still be wise not to park underneath the leader - this much would have to me made clear.  As we were entering the windy fall season, when the risk of a late snow was very real, I felt the tree needed an IMMEDIATE lightening of leverage.  We scheduled a three hour emergency pruning session and inspection, which revealed further interesting defects, but solidified my resolve that the tree could be retained.  Once aloft, I could tell that the tree still had sufficient strength to cope with wind and snow for a while.

The decay in the base of the tree was my second major concern.  While there was a disconcertingly large open wound, there was also a healthy column of cambium feeding every major leader coming from the stem.  The vigor of the above-ground shoots made me confident that the roots underground were still working efficiently and the tree hadn't yet given up.  There were two other very extended leaders - one over the lawn and one over the entry to the home - which would need to be lightened considerably at the tips if the tree was to be kept.

I looked up into the Hackberry, thinking of caveat after caveat:  "The tree looks very vigorous now, but it could begin to decline this year or next. I can make cuts to lighten the loads I see over both homes, but it's impossible to "engineer" a tree, and it still has the potential to fail due to visible or invisible defects.  I can prune heavily in selective places in order to make limbs more structurally sound, but it is difficult to say how the tree will react - will it send up weak sucker growth to compensate, cut its losses by compartmentalizing and discard entire branches or send energy to the remaining strong limbs?"
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A past preservation measure.
PictureMuch larger-than-normal pruning cuts.
This is the nature of the work.  Educated arborists endeavor to treat patients in the best way they can.  We make care decisions based on experience with other trees, on knowledge garnered at conferences, in publications and in conversations with colleagues.  But it is also the nature of the work to navigate with a fair amount of uncertainty.  Trees cannot communicate their symptoms or needs clearly.  In the litigious environment we inhabit, it makes sense that arborists might default to the "safest" answer and remove anything remotely threatening, but what values are we sacrificing by doing so?  If this tree had been over a busy street or in the middle of a public park, the exposure would have made the decision much clearer.  With near constant human presence underneath the tree, it's unreasonable to keep such a tree standing without building some kind of barrier to protect public safety.  In this case, while the tree does threaten a structure, it's the owner's perogative to accept their level of risk once they have been fully informed by an expert in the field.

So it came to a difficult conversation with the homeowner; here was a tree I felt confident could provide considerable benefit into the future. How far into the future, however, was certainly a question.

These are the jobs that make life as an Arborist worthwhile. 

I spent a few days pondering the tree, losing sleep and picturing all the angles of the Hackberry's canopy. I finally sent the client two bids; one for removal and one for a relatively heavy-handed structural pruning intended to keep the tree from failing until it had actively begun to decline.  Along with the bids, I wrote an extensive email detailing all the scenarios, the risks and the costs associated with keeping the tree: I recommended a yearly inspection regimen and some upgrades to overall care, and highlighted the fact that there was little money being saved, since the tree's eventual removal was likely to cost just as much as it would if it was done now.  In addition to the "hospice care" costs, I discussed the less tangible benefits of preservation:  It was still a contributing member of the mature canopy in the neighborhood, was still quite strong and vigorous (by no means on its last legs), and it was shading the house, which would keep things much more comfortable in the approaching heat of summer.  Few of these benefits have price-tags attached, but from a quality of life perspective, they are priceless.

Removal had its own benefits associated.  Peace-of-mind and considerable cost savings over time were the largest.  For my company, a removal would be a large, fast cash infusion at more than double the price of pruning, and I would never have to worry that my counsel had led a client to keep a potential hazard in their front yard.  In many ways, removing the tree would have been the "easy way out." Less stress for everyone.  

Everyone except the tree.

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Celtis occidentalis post-pruning: The Hackberry is still large, full and gorgeous even after severe reduction.
Thankfully, they elected to keep it around.

Even in the worst-case "staged removal" scenario, where we remove larger pieces as time progresses, the less tangible benefits of maintaining the Hackberry on hospice care were enough to outweigh the costs.


Mature trees are conflicting creatures in the urban canopy.  They overhang structures, lift sidewalks and send roots into sewer pipes.  They require expensive maintenance pruning to keep in good health, sometimes need costly plant-health-care treatments to battle fungal and insect invaders, and even a trained arborist is hard-pressed to give any sort of guarantee on their longevity.  But imagine for a moment a perfectly "safe" canopy - one where all risk has been mitigated away.  It looks a lot like a canopy of short-statured trees growing away from people and homes.  I don't think it takes a person who works intimately with trees to see how distasteful that scene would be.

Preventing a risk-less, sun-blasted city, then, becomes a matter of advocating for the sometimes-dangerous, always interesting older tree.  As an arborist, it's that advocacy that makes me tick.  I love to see the good ones taken care of and the not-so-good taken out of the way so that the canopy can grow fuller and stronger.  It means being crystal-clear with clients on risks, benefits and future prospects, but I think it leads to a better-managed urban forest, more-pleasant neighborhoods and much happier trees!
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Storms - cleaning up after Colorado weather

5/11/2014

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It's difficult to know what to write about on a day like today.  Last night, a winter storm rolled into town, calling up memories of a flooded Boulder County last year.  This morning, the steady drizzle turned to sleety snow, and now we're faced with worries of an entirely different nature.

Here in Colorado, most of the domestic trees we've planted are exotics from more temperate climes.  They leaf out enthusiastically as the weather warms up for spring time, filling the air with pollen and the sheen of fresh chlorophyll.  We eagerly await the opening of Lilacs, the exhuberant pink and white of Apples in flower.  But there can be a downside to all these early-rising plants; storm damage.
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Cabling is a last-ditch effort to keep the canopy of a tree together after splitting or major damage.
Storm recovery is much more than hacking up the fallen wood.  It's looking at the injured tree with a practiced eye and determining what can be done to help the tree recover with health and strength.

So as the snow piles up and starts sticking to the leaves of your trees today, don't think about how happy your Arborist will be to have the work once the storm clears.  Instead, picture them as I am today; sitting indoors, biting their nails at the prospect of having to painstakingly restore their favorite canopies to a semblance of their former glory.
It's said if you don't like the weather in Colorado, all you need to do is wait a minute.  That capricious nature is perfectly (and vexingly) manifested in our late-spring snow storms.  These storms, while they provide much appreciated moisture, bring large amounts of wet, heavy precipitation.  Snow like this can build up on the surface of new leaves, weighing down branches not equipped to handle the load.

I've had a few clients over the years who laugh the resulting breakage off as "job security," but to we Arborists who care about the health and quality of the trees in our cities, the fallout is devastating.  It can take years for a canopy to recover from a bad storm, and many times a tree will only recover with the careful, slow-paced guidance of an arborist experienced with restoration pruning.  Often, the central leader of a tree will be damaged by snow loading, or large wounds will have been opened by limbs stripping off the trunk.  Such damage doesn't heal quickly.  Restoration pruning requires a skilled judge of structure and energy allocation.  We, as practitioners, need to cautiously balance our pruning cuts between the intention to clean up ragged wounds and improve poor structure with the tree's coming need for productive leaf area to heal those wounds!  It can feel like a catch-22 sometimes, and is always stressful.
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This Apple lost a major leader to breakage years ago. As a result, it required bracing (another invasive procedure) to overcome the weakness of this massive decay pocket.
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A Story About Caution

4/21/2014

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Careful rigging made this removal of a Hybrid Cottonwood in Arvada, Colorado smooth and safe.  The tree was leaning directly over the house and had major limbs within 8 feet of the roof-line.  Opposite the house is a small Elm - this tree's replacement - which also couldn't be damaged during the removal.  Scroll through the slideshow and see how skilled use of heavy lines, large pulleys, technical felling and lowering devices got this potentially dangerous tree on the ground with NO DAMAGE to property or adjacent plant material, save a few divots in the grass from the large stems coming down at the end.  When a crane is cost-prohibitive or the tree is too far away from the front, rigging can provide the solution to conundrums like this Cottonwood.
Just another day working in trees, spiking up a moderately sized Cottonwood, right?

At several points during the day of this removal, I caught myself saying. "Yup, looks close enough."  I've reached a junction in my career where I've done lots of technical pruning and rigging over small drop zones or with valuable items underneath.  A few times when I've said "close enough," my plan hasn't been.  It only takes one limb carelessly dropped or one piece of wood caught by hand to break a plate glass window, crack a flagstone patio or to inflict a nagging injury on my own body.  The stakes are fairly high in arboriculture, and one "close enough" moment will effectively result in a wash on the day's work.  It can cost twice the price of a job to fly by the seat of your pants!

I'd like to think it's a kind of wisdom that led me, in the case of the Cottonwood above, to question myself every time I said aloud "seems ok" in the canopy.  For me (and for the homeowner) it was definitely worth taking even an extra half hour to set rigging to avoid breaking things on the property or people in the work zone.

There's a reason we carry liability insurance - miscalculations do happen - but an Arborist never wants to have to use that safety net.
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Some tiny videos of big work - timelapse pruning!

4/1/2014

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Arboriculture is kind of a lot of work

Did you know that your certified arborist or climber specialist should be getting as far out to the tips of long branches as they safely can in order to make proper structural cuts?  Were you aware that a thorough pruning of even a 30 foot apple requires climbing and/or a substantially sized ladder?  These time lapse sequences illustrate the amount of work and skill that goes into a good structural pruning:
The crabapple in the video is only about 25 feet tall at its very top, but it took me 1.5 hours to work out the cuts on each tip, to lessen leverage on longer, breakage-prone branches and deal with the load of dead wood cluttering the canopy and limiting air and light flow to essential interior leaves.
This one is a relatively simple Silver Maple.  I mostly removed dangerous dead branches from this declining tree, but I still had to go to each branch tip in order to remove branches afflicted by squirrel damage and to clean up improper mid-branch cuts made by a line clearance crew a year earlier.  This poor Maple only took me an hour to prune, but you can see how much monkeying around was necessary in that time.

Timelapse is a pretty neat tool to capture long prunes and removals from beginning to end.  If you decide to contract us, ask if you can get video of the process so you'll know exactly what was done in your trees!
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