DIY or Pro Tree Care?

This Blog is for the DIY Home Owner. But one of the important decisions you will need to make when working on your trees is when the job is too big for you and you need a Pro.

The next question is how do you qualify a Professional Tree Pruner?

Let's start with what you can do.

Testing the watering around your tree should be your first item of importance. Plants must have correct watering. Too much they drown, too little the desiccate. So that little water meter needs to be jammed in the ground around your tree every day for a week to seek what is really happening. You won't have to do this forever because you'll start to get an idea of what is happening and be able to adjust for it with how you water.

The next thing you can do is each week after mowing, stop and study the trees from top to bottom for a moment. It is amazing how we walk right by tree problems simply because we are not looking for it.

Fall and winter pruning, this is the right time to prune but it is cold. However there isn't much else to do in the yard so the trees get your full attention. There is a lot of pruning you can do yourself and I'll point you to good books that are simple to follow and the right tools.

Now we hit the pruning job that's twenty feet over our head. Never presume you can tackle these high jobs, the tree get's much bigger it seems once you are in the tree. I always tell my guys, "well I guess the tree grew from last week because when I bid this job, it didn't seem that hard."

Selecting a Professional Tree Person comes down to knowledge and attitude. Anyone can call themselves an arborist, so don't trust that. ISA Certified Arborist have to go through ongoing testing and should have the knowledge, but make sure they have the same attitude about trimming your trees as you do. The more knowledge you have the more questions you can ask to qualify them.

It is important to prune a little bit every year, than putting it off for five years with one big prune job. Often it is hard to find a big tree company that will do a little bit every year, so a ISA Certified Arborist in a lawn care company might better suit your needs.

Ask lots of questions and pay attention to the answers. Write down the answer and check them online before hiring them. It is really difficult to glue a branch back on once it has been cut off.