The Nations' Expert Arborists

The Nations’ Tree Challenges

Construction root damage is the defining tree problem in The Nations. Every teardown and tall skinny build cuts roots on the mature trees next door, and the injury surfaces two to five years later as thinning crowns and dead limbs on the cut side. If you bought new construction with an old tree in the yard, an assessment now beats an emergency call later.

Declining survivors need honest triage. Some of the old hackberries and maples along the Charlotte Avenue corridor can be stabilized with pruning and soil care, and some are past saving. The difference is structural, not cosmetic, and it takes a trained eye to make the call. We tell you which is which, in writing, and we do not sell removals that are not needed.

Young street trees without structural pruning are the neighborhood’s slow motion problem. Trees planted by builders rarely get formative pruning, so co-dominant leaders and crossing limbs get built into the future canopy of the 51st Avenue strip a decade before they fail. Structural pruning while the cuts are still small is the cheapest tree work there is, and the highest return.