East Hempfield's Expert Arborists

East Hempfield’s Tree Challenges

Callery pear is common in the township’s newer subdivisions, and its natural growth habit produces tight, narrow branch unions that trap bark instead of building solid wood. That single structural flaw is why callery pear splits so readily in storms. Honeylocust, planted alongside it in many new developments, holds up better on its own but still needs periodic checks where old pruning wounds sit close to driveways and property lines.

Spotted lanternfly and emerald ash borer track the rest of Lancaster County, with lanternfly pressuring maples and any remaining tree of heaven along the commercial corridors, and ash borer working steadily through untreated ash. The bigger structural risk is underfoot. Compacted development soil gives water fewer places to go than open farmland does, so saturated soil root failure is a greater risk here during a hard summer thunderstorm or a nor’easter. Periodic ice storms add a separate winter risk on top of all of it, and an arborist who checks the local grading history reads that whole picture before a single cut.