Tree Care Notes
Many love Norway Maple trees for their large size, rapid growth, and fall color. However, this fast-growing invasive species often develops structural problems and must be watched and cared for closely. And truthfully, native sugar or red maples actually display much brighter colors! Learn more about special considerations property owners should consider for these invasive and problematic trees.
We have posted before about using dynamic cabling to support smaller splits and/or limbs or branches that can use additional support. In the last year, we have been deploying a steel ring as a hub in static (metal/no stretch) cabling systems. This case study shows what we saw in a recent sugar maple and how we decided to install a hub with four legs (cables) to hold this large and valuable tree together.
Have you ever gone down to do the splits and not be able to get yourself back up without help? Well, trees with structural deficiencies can actually split in a similar manner. Two arms of a trunk may stretch wide during a wind event, but they can't pull themselves back together afterward. The typical split we see is like this one below, with the drill and drill bit through the trunk.
This is Big Bertha the fir tree. She lives south of Mt Horeb and was named by a tree loving 7-year-old. The mother of the boy called us and asked if we could stitch it back up after a summer storm. The possibility of cutting it down due to the split between the two halves was too much for the boy to manage and he pleaded with mom to call us.
Every year, we "straighten up" quite a few trees for various reasons. Trees typically start leaning due to a high wind event, sometimes combined with heavy rains and wet soil. A leaning tree isn't necessarily unhealthy (it really depends on the root condition), but they do look funny in the context of a manicured suburban landscape. This learning spruce tree below made a great case study on straightening tipping trees.
So as proof that we can learn and advance our skills, with great pride I want to show you our newest technique for cabling some autumn blaze maples. Cameron of Lundin Tree Care was not super impressed when I told him about our new technique. “I’ve been doing it that way for a while now.” Well, I'm glad we caught up!
