Arboriculture and Mortality

[ward]

Managing the trees of clients is quite often more about the humans than the trees. This could not be truer than when the humans are themselves close to death. Two scenarios.

In the first, client who is dying of stage 4 cancer insists upon leaving off the work order the removal of a dead tree in his vista line. In the end, the client wanted to keep the dead tree--apparently to look at as the tree was right in the vista of the shimmering river.

In the second, client (in his 80's) wants to retain a half dead alder with weeping lesions right in his vista line knowing full well that the tree is going to die, and that he won't be around to see its imminent death. Client wants us to greatly reduce the tree, making every bit of our 'preserving veteran trees' toolkit, even at the risk of turning the tree into a hatrack.

Both of these trees deserve removal, indeed, call out for removal. Every bit of my arboricultural instincts tell me to remove, but the human being in me knows that this is no way to talk about near death or dead beings with one who is not far from death himself. Find myself bending the rules a little bit here.

In the first, I told the man that it would be an 'excellent' choice to leave the dead tree (as it posed no hazard).
In the second, we are engaged to prune down the alder in the best hatracking kind of way ("preserving veteran trees"), using extraordinary means.

Was I wrong? Should I have insisted upon removal in both cases?

 

[KentuckySawyer]

The person that owns the property makes the decisions as to what happens on that property. We just provide options.

 

[Jemco]

Journeyman arborist's are all too keenly aware that trees are better off without humans around period.

Where would they be without us?

Seventh heaven!

Jemco

 

[Tom Dunlap]

You seemed to have filtered your decisions through s risk assessment. Nicely done.

Trees mean so many different things.

Thanks for sharing the story

 

[CanadianStan]

Managing the trees of clients is quite often more about the humans than the trees. This could not be truer than when the humans are themselves close to death. Two scenarios.

In the first, client who is dying of stage 4 cancer insists upon leaving off the work order the removal of a dead tree in his vista line. In the end, the client wanted to keep the dead tree--apparently to look at as the tree was right in the vista of the shimmering river.

In the second, client (in his 80's) wants to retain a half dead alder with weeping lesions right in his vista line knowing full well that the tree is going to die, and that he won't be around to see its imminent death. Client wants us to greatly reduce the tree, making every bit of our 'preserving veteran trees' toolkit, even at the risk of turning the tree into a hatrack.

Both of these trees deserve removal, indeed, call out for removal. Every bit of my arboricultural instincts tell me to remove, but the human being in me knows that this is no way to talk about near death or dead beings with one who is not far from death himself. Find myself bending the rules a little bit here.

In the first, I told the man that it would be an 'excellent' choice to leave the dead tree (as it posed no hazard).
In the second, we are engaged to prune down the alder in the best hatracking kind of way ("preserving veteran trees"), using extraordinary means.

Was I wrong? Should I have insisted upon removal in both cases?

If there are no targets, and the trees don’t present any hazard, I see no reason for removal

The only time I can think of where I would recommend removal for a tree with no hazard to any targets, would be if that tree had a disease or other pathogenic infection that could be spread to nearby trees (eg armillaria).

The purpose of removing a tree is only to mitigate risk

 

[Reach]

The way I see it, you’ve made the right decisions here. We have done similar, and will do some odd stuff for customers on occasion as long as it does not cause a hazard or needless/preventable damage to the tree.

 

[cerviarborist]

You don't have a decision in the matter. The client states their objectives. Their objectives inform the scope and the scope defines the work. It's not your property, your wallet or your tree. You have the decision to walk if you don't like the assignment, but that's it.

More and more people are understanding that dying and dead trees still provide significant services to the local habitat by providing harborage and substrate for an entire food web. Try suggesting leaving a habitat pedestal, if there's not a significant target within the fall zone. Your clients will enjoy watching woodpeckers, owls and all kinds of life attracted to what's left. Dr. Duncan Slater has published some great material with regard to leaving a 15' foot or so stem, in order to allow the tree to continue to provide ecological services.

I forgot to mention, it also gets you out of having to grind the stump and carry off the heaviest parts of the tree. ;-)