Having trees on your property is a great addition to a healthy lifestyle. They clean the air, give shade and UV protection during hot months, and can produce nutrient-dense fruit like apples. If you own trees, you should enlist a professional arborist to care for them. Keep these questions in mind as you’re searching for an arborist.
1. How Often Should You Check My Trees?
Before you bring on an arborist, you should plan for their regular visits. Should they come every month, every two months, or a couple of times a year? How often they need to come to your property depends on the species of your tree or spruces.
2. Do You Have Insurance?
While trees add value, they can also come with liability concerns. Your tree service provider should have insurance before starting work so you won’t be responsible for injuries that occur. A “lis pendens” is a Latin term that translates to “pending lawsuit”. A lis pendens is a means of alerting third parties to the pendency of a lawsuit against real estate. Avoid needing to be familiar with this term by hiring a professional with liability protection.
3. Can I Do My Pruning?
Do you love having an outdoor lifestyle? If so, it’s understandable if you like working outside and want to do some work with your trees. However, for the safety and health of your trees, it may not be a good idea. A professional arborist knows exactly where to trim tree branches and how much they should take off. They can easily identify diseased and dying areas of the tree you would miss. Keeping your tree disease free is essential to the health of other trees on the property.
4. Do You Do Tree Removal?
While it’s a hard decision to remove a tree from your property, it’s often necessary for safety reasons. According to Houzz, 1 of every 25 homes suffer damage from trees in any given year. Every year, harsh winds and hurricanes blow down trees in neighborhoods across the country. Imagine if one of those trees is too close to your house. Even without bad weather, a dead tree is likely to become a safety hazard that can fall over at any time. A fallen tree can hit your home, you, or someone else!
5. Can You Do Stump Grinding?
In the event of a tree removal from your property, it will leave behind a stump. Keeping an old stump on your ground will not only make your landscape unsightly, but it can also be dangerous. It’s easy for people to possibly trip over those stumps. Plus, a stump is still alive, so if there are overgrown roots under that stump, they can continue to grow and possibly damage your foundation or septic tank.
6. Are You Available for Emergency Services?
Let’s say you have the misfortune of a fallen tree on your property. You need to remove it as soon as possible, especially if it goes onto a neighbor’s property or onto the street. Having an arborist on deck that can quickly come out for the removal can give you peace of mind that you won’t have a giant tree blocking your landscape. If you live in an area prone to inclement weather like high winds and hurricanes, emergency tree removal may be necessary.
There are more than 8,444 arborists currently employed in the United States as of 2023, according to Zippia. So, when it’s time to hire one, you have several options to choose from. Trees can add so much to your lifestyle, so you must do your part to keep them healthy. If you need someone to care for your residential or commercial trees, contact our team for more information.