Loving trees can be easy; however, caring for trees sometimes requires professional guidance. Like us, trees are long-lived organisms. Annually, we as long-lived organisms, visit different professionals to keep track of our health and seek guidance to ensure we are living the healthiest possible life. We do this through all stages of life; newborn, youth, middle-age, and senior. Most of us visit dentists twice annually to ensure our oral care is in good standings. By doing so, dentists can track any changes in our teeth or gums and with their observations, they provide guidance on strategies towards remaining proactive and successful with oral healthcare. This is the same with the advised visit to a doctor for an annual physical exam. It provides the physician a means of collecting observations to determine if lifestyle, diet, and other factors are maintaining a healthy body. Annual visits allow for physicians to see the patient’s response to strategies and whether they are working or if tweaks and other methods should be considered for specific health issues. Not too different than us, trees perform best and grow to their potential when a proactive approach is used with them.
Kramer Tree Specialists offers a monitor program that focuses on making timely evaluations to coincide with the plant health care issues common to the species of trees throughout your property. Monitoring provides the opportunity to identify changes in tree health and structure allowing for courses of action to begin in a more appropriate time frame. With each site visit, a written report will be provided by our ISA Board Certified Master Arborist discussing observations of significance and any recommended services. The number of visits, per year, varies from one to four and is determined based on factors such as; tree species, tree count, site exposure, and client’s request.
Beyond that, the monitor program allows tree owners to cultivate a relationship with an educated, experienced, and trained arborist. This relationship with a Master Arborist will help to ensure the success of trees not only to work with what Mother Nature brings us in way of pests, pathogens, and weather extremes but also to help ensure tree success when man becomes involved. Regularly talking with your arborist and asking questions will help protect your trees with both the little things such as where to discharge your gutters or sump pump water, to larger projects such as a patio expansion or new home additions. Many of our actions play direct roles in the health of trees and often the stress and damage to trees that can be avoided.
Single-family homeowners choosing to participate in a monitor program will benefit by receiving information and recommendations towards helping their trees perform to the best of their ability, become more intimate with their landscaping by learning the behaviors of their trees throughout the year and over the years of monitoring, and how the urban conditions are impacting their trees and steps in dealing with it.
For homeowner associations or commercial building, the monitor program provides all the above benefits to Board of Directors and owners/managers, as well as, ensuring the trees throughout the property is studied and managed as one population, rather than addressing individual trees as they become noticed or reported by residents. This program allows for Board members, owners, and managers to join in on-site visits with the Master Arborist allowing for any and all questions relating to trees to be asked and is a great time to discuss future projects of the property. Attendance is not required. If members do not want to join the property walks, participating in the monitor program is a great way to ensure the tree population is being regularly monitored and managed professionally. Following each site visit, a summary report is provided discussing the observations collected while on-site, recommendations if necessary, and discussion of any significant trends of interest being seen throughout the area for proper preparation and future budgetary purposes.
There are many ways trees communicate to us throughout the entire year. The spring season is a great time to start collecting observations. Watching trees break out of winter dormancy and enter the growing season can often be a window into their health; is the canopy development balanced or lopsided? Is the leaf tissue a normal color? Is the canopy development delayed compared to its healthy counterparts? These are just a few of the observations the Master Arborist will be collecting while on sites this spring. Be sure to reach out to your Kramer Tree sales arborist and/or our Plant Health Care department to learn more about this program and how monitoring your trees can lead to strong healthy trees!
