Tree Disease and Tree Maintenance

Trees provide significant benefits to landscapes, communities and the environment. However, they can also be liabilities. Trees can become weak, sick or stressed due to many factors and fall — unfortunately in doing so, they can cause property damage or worse, personal injury. Proper tree care is essential in reducing these risks. It can also prolong the tree’s life and in turn increase the benefits it provides.

If you have trees on your property, it’s your duty to keep them healthy and free of risk. Regular tree care can help identify hazardous trees and the risks they present. Once the hazard is recognized, preventative measures may be taken to reduce the likelihood of the tree falling.

Know the Signs

There are some tell-tale signs that may indicate that your tree could be at risk of failure. The International Society of Arboriculture suggests the follow considerations:

Are there large dead branches in the tree?
Are there detached branches hanging in the tree?
Does the tree have cavities or rotten wood along the trunk or in major branches?
Are mushrooms present at the base of the tree?
Are there cracks or splits in the trunk or where branches are attached?
Have any branches fallen from the tree?
Have adjacent trees fallen over or died?
Has the trunk developed a strong lean?
Do many of the major branches arise from one point on the trunk?
Have the roots been broken off, injured, or damaged by lowering the soil level, installing pavement, repairing sidewalks, or digging trenches?
Has the site recently been changed by construction, raising the soil level, or installing lawns?
Have the leaves prematurely developed an unusual color or size?
Have trees in adjacent wooded areas been removed?
Has the tree been topped or otherwise heavily pruned?

If you answered yes to any of these, you should contact a professional arborists to conduct a safety assessment on your tree(s).

SavATree Can Help Reduce Your Risk

SavATree’s professional arborist can help you manage the trees on your property and can provide treatments that can help maintain your trees health and vigor while also making them safer. And, only a qualified arborist can identify problems that lie beneath the tree’s surface, out of sight, which may now or eventually lead to it falling. In addition, SavATree’s arborists can also:

Pruning services. Because inappropriate pruning may weaken a tree, trust SavATree’s professional arborists to safely and effectively prune away defective branches or provide artistic pruning services.
Cabling and bracing. Cabling and bracing create artificial support to structurally weak or injured trees. These mechanical supports prevent injuries such as branch breakage, which inevitably lead to wood decay.
Disease and insect control. SavATree’s arborists can diagnose and treat many disease and insect infestations that affect your trees and landscaped plantings. In many cases, we can help prevent these before they begin.
Routine care. Mature trees need routine care in the form of water, fertilizer (in some cases), mulch, and pruning as dictated by the season and their structure.
Fertilizing. Fertilizer is vital in maintaining the health of your trees. We offer organic, all-nutrient and integrated programs so there is one to suite everyone’s environmental preferences.
Lightning protection. Trees are the most common victims of lightning strikes. SavATree can help protect your trees from this damaging phenomenon by installing lightning rods.
Remove the tree. In the unfortunate instance that a tree needs to be removed, SavATree can help with the entire process.