Sometimes what you really need is an educated Arborist to help you think through your canopy’s current and future needs. Whether that’s an initial one-hour conversation, a training session so you can learn to prune or plant a tree, or a thorough inspection and Arborist’s report, I can help!
Initial meetings
It all starts with a conversation and a walkthrough. I prefer to meet with clients on-site for our initial meeting and spend some deep time walking around the property discussing the history and trajectory of the home and landscape. Your needs are just as important as the needs of your trees, and I prefer to allow our conversation the time it deserves to really flesh out what you’re seeking and where that intersects with the history and future needs of the individual trees you are responsible for. I believe this step is just as important as any hands-on pruning or other work. I’ll never rush you through a meeting and I, as the owner of the company, will always be the one doing the initial consultation!
Risk Assessment and Reporting
Detailed inspections, Arborist’s Reports, and the TRAQ process aren’t just for veteran or highly-compromised trees in need of preservation. Sometimes tree risk assessment is just about evaluating whether to keep or remove a given “borderline” tree or whether to consider it for maintenance at all. At times, insurance companies or home inspectors will request an expert opinion in order to write a policy or recommend the purchase of a home. Sometimes a nervous neighbor wants an expert to look closely at your tree to help them sleep at night in the bedroom directly underneath that tree! Whether formal reporting is needed or not, I am happy to be that expert eye in difficult-to-evaluate or politically sensitive situations. I can even go to bat with a municipality where appropriate in the case that you wish to appeal a “must remove” notice or permit denial.
Stress mitigation planning
Trees in an urban environment face a number of challenges that don’t affect their forest-grown brethren. Some of those things we can’t control and some we can. Air quality, ambient moisture, damage due to traffic or construction, and poor soil quality can be challenging to spot and understand without experience and training. The first step in a consultation is recognizing what’s going on in your particular situation. The second step is figuring out what interventions are possible and might be effective with each tree!
Prepurchase/Presale assessment
Many times, the trees on a property are overlooked during the traditional inspection period for the sale of a home. I’ve had several clients who’ve had me over once a home has been closed on, only to discover they have tens of thousands of dollars in deferred pruning or removals to deal with! That kind of surprise is easily avoidable by having me out BEFORE the home is sold. This gives you numbers to work with and leverage for use during your negotiations. Trees can increase the value of a home substantially, but occasionally they also represent a considerable health-and-safety expense!
Preventive care plans/damage mitigation
In cases like construction or other poor site conditions, a consultation provides an actionable plan to improve the situation. Particularly in the case of planned building or landscape construction, an initial consultation leaves you with strategies to protect the roots, the stem, and the branches of an important tree before contractors arrive with equipment, materials, and increased traffic. In cases where a site has been landscaped inappropriately or construction has already been completed, we can talk about how to reverse-course by installing better mulch, improving watering or drainage, or modifying soil quality to lower overall stress on the tree!
Tree-centered landscape planning
If you’ve got a big project coming up, the success of your new and existing trees is going to hinge on what strategies you have in place for protection and ongoing care. A pre-installation consultation can give you guidelines on where to install irrigation for minimum root-damage and maximum efficiency, which species of tree are appropriate for each planting site, and what sizes to procure for installation. Ideally, we’ll have this conversation before plans are formalized and certainly before ground is ever broken!
Preventive pruning and maintenance planning/writing specifications
If you want to do your own maintenance on smaller trees, or you have a pruning company you like but simply need a second opinion, I am happy to write detailed specifications on pruning, cultural improvements, and maintenance for a third party to carry out.
Onsite Tree Care Training!
This is one of my favorites. Individual or group training is incredibly effective for you and your trees and is wildly fulfilling for me! I have many clients who are very involved in the care and feeding of their own landscapes and who prefer to get hands-on with their trees. I am SO supportive of folks taking that kind of ownership with the plant material in their care! However, tree care is a very technical set of operations which require training and discipline to perform correctly. Cut selection is of vital importance, cut placement and depth along the stem is equally important, pruning dosage can be the difference between a healthy and a stressed tree, and timing can be absolutely critical with certain species in our climate! That’s to say nothing of day-to-day cultural care guidelines! Independent online research can be a daunting task and is fraught with out-of-date information and/or regionally-specific guidelines that may not apply to Colorado! By getting a one-on-one training session, you have access to my nearly 20 years of hard won, dedicated training and experience. I can teach you the CORRECT way to plan and care for your trees into the future. Pick my brain! I love it!