Tackling Tricky Tree Issues

What was she thinking?

My sister Amy, normally the coolest of customers, slipped up a few years back when an ice storm snapped the tops off some of the tall pines in her backyard in Chapel Hill, N.C. Although one 75-foot tree was alive, it was teetering.

That's when the "random truck filled with guys" happened by. "They asked me how much I would pay for them to take the tree down and then offered to do it for $150," she remembers. "I said 'Okay' because I'd already checked a few places in town that would probably charge much more than that."

Then they said, "We need cash," which she paid. She wasn't around to see how they took down the tree, but they left a huge stump and instead of carrying off the branches and logs as promised, they dragged them just far enough into the backyard that they wouldn't be seen from the house, and took off.

"I basically had to start all over again to get the stump taken out and the brush carried off," she remembers. "I guess I'm just lucky they didn't drop the tree on the house."

Amy's is one side of the tree-care story. My friend Susan in Knoxville, Tenn., took issue with a company on the other end of the spectrum. "We asked a tree company to look over a few mature trees and advise us," she told me. "They wanted us to pay them $150 a month just to come out and feed them."

Somewhere between those two extremes--hiring ne'er-do-wells and paying for Rockefeller-quality care--is a place for an arborist, a professional who cares for trees and other woody plants with tasks ranging from treating diseases to pruning to occasionally removing entire trees. But first, what can you tackle yourself?

You can probably cut lighter branches yourself with a pole pruner, says Bob Rouse, director of accreditation for the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA). "It won't let you cut branches wider than about 1-1/2 inches in diameter, so you don't have to worry about dropping big branches on anyone or the weight of the branch stripping a large patch of bark. It takes an awful long time for a wound like that to close and it allows decay and deterioration into the trunk."

You may also be able to take out a branch or two of a larger tree with a hand saw, sturdy step ladder and a friend to hold it steady. "But it doesn't take a very big tree to get hurt," says David Nowlin, agricultural extension educator for Caddo County, Okla. "If a tree has more than a 7-inch diameter trunk, I'd say get some help."

Rouse also warns against using a chain or pole saw for a job over your head or climbing to work on a tree. "The pros use approved ropes and a harness or an area lift vehicle," he says. "If it's a hazardous tree, even an arborist will call in a crane rather than attempt it."

And if you decide to hire an arborist? That's when you should start really being careful, says Rouse. "Tree care and arboriculture seem to attract a lot of people with a pick-up truck and chain saw but without experience."

He and other tree care experts give this advice for arboriculture consumers: