Only good things come to our minds when we think of trees! Everyone loves a pleasant walk in the woods under their thick, green shadow or a beautiful sunset at the orchard. With trees being the lungs of our planet, planting them is the number one activity for saving our home from global warming. But enjoying trees in nature and having to care for those on your property or garden isn’t the same thing. Tree care is an inevitable task whether you’re new to this topic or have years of experience. And sometimes certain situations are best to be handled by professionals. The fact that these situations are even not related to tree care may surprise you. What are tree specialists and why should you hire one?

When and Why You Should Hire a Tree Specialist?

A tree surgeon, also known as an arborist or an arboriculturist, is a person whose job is to take care of trees and make sure they’re healthy and safe. He’s a professional with the required qualifications and expertise not only in caring for trees but also in managing them. While you probably will manage to care for trees on daily basis, there are some situations and problems that you can solve only with the help of a tree surgeon. These are the main reasons to consider arborist consulting services.

Development Related Arborist Reports

Whether you’re planning small construction work in your garden or starting a new building project, if there are trees nearby, you’ll most likely need a tree surgeon report. Who can write a tree report? Tree reports, also known as tree surveys, are assessments made by level 5 qualified tree surgeons. Their main purpose is to help you easily manage the trees on your property while making any development projects. They can help you make well-informed decisions on which trees to keep and which to remove. For example, you may find out that a certain tree is among the species that are protected by law. Knowing this will help you decide to keep the tree and help the designers make it incorporate into their future designs so it blends well into them. 

That way, you can make the best out of your plans. Or, you may find out that the tree you meant to keep near the house has some sort of decay or fungal infection that might cause its fall at any point, especially during a bad storm or strong wind. The best decision would be to remove this tree before you start building. Tree problems of this kind are often invisible to the common eye and therefore need a professional assessment. Arborists have all the special tools and knowledge when it comes to providing the tree surgeon report you need.

Safety First with Regular Risk Assessments

Keeping trees safe is the responsibility of the property owner. This means that you would be responsible for every tree-related accident on your property. There are many situations which we can’t have any control over – like weather caused emergencies. But some things we can keep under control by doing regular risk assessments. Since safety is so important, it’s best if we seek professional help and get our trees checked by an arborist to determine if they pose a risk to people or property.

Though you can never know if a tree is 100% safe, getting a tree risk assessment report and taking the necessary corrective action can significantly reduce the risk. It’s worth the mention that these and other similar problems can be easily prevented by simply pruning the trees correctly. When done properly and by professionals, pruning the trees when they’re young can prevent the many structural problems that cause diseases and prevent tree removals. It can save you from a lot of costs and problems later on.

What You Should Consider When Hiring Professionals

Since tree care and management has such a large impact on our life and safety, you must hire the right person for the job. How to achieve this and what are the things you should consider when hiring a tree specialist?

Before you start looking for a company, it’s very important to know what services you are looking for. One thing is to look for tree maintenance services, like pruning, mulching or soil analyses but tree removal, stump grinding and power line clearing, as well as providing a legal tree report, is another level of arboriculture work. This requires a qualified, licenced arborist that carries insurance and possesses specialised and expensive equipment. Look for a consultant that is AQF (Australian Qualification Framework) Level 5 qualified, with a diploma of arboriculture and plenty of experience in the field and when you find one, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Some of the questions you can ask are:

• Do you have a licence? Experience? References?
• What work and safety equipment will you use?
• Do you have insurance?

Once you’re confident in your choice, let them know you’re interested in the details of the work process and ask for an honest quote with no hidden costs. A professional will be delighted to have a client that is interested in their work and share the same values as theirs.
Because trees are the valuable assets, we hold shared responsibility for, we want to make sure we make the right decisions when it comes to their care and maintenance.

• Dead limbs, like bare branches or lack of foliage, are clear signs that something is obstructing the flow of nutrients on the inside or that the root is damaged. Therefore, they must be removed immediately;
• Rotten wood on the trunk that makes it crumbly is a sign of decay; 
• The root damage caused by pavements can indicate that there’s damage on the inside also and thus needs to be checked; 
• Cracks, cavities and splits can be a sign that the tree is failing; 
• Fungi or mushrooms growing around the tree as well as leaves falling off at the wrong time of the year are signs that the tree is being under stress; 
• Soil lifted around the tree might be an indicator of root problems and the tree can fall over; 
• Unbalanced trees, or trees leaning more on one side, are likely to fall over soon.