Three or four have been felled, numerous have been pruned and limbed we cannot or don't want to do ourselves, diagnoses rendered and questions asked.

Today we lost an old friend. An ash tree here as long as I can remember growing in our cool grotto where the spring overflows. EAB has been identified in our county and I had serious fears it was responsible for the tree's decline. The good news is that when the borer-laden and dead limbs came down for a close inspection, it was found to be native beetles. The aborist identified the tree as a pumpkin ash. That's a new one to me, and he said it's the first he has ever felled. It's a wetland tree, and having been located in the area of spring overflow, it now makes sense as to species. It never did look typical of a green ash and now I know why.

Guess.............hope........we are good to go now on the trees for a few years. They've used tools and equipment from the smallest hand saws to the largest bucket trucks, chains and hoists and just an interesting thing to watch.

Nota bene for those who are just getting into trees. Get your work done on them sooner rather than later. They don't stay small forever. Expect to have some maintenance costs down the road and budget for it. Don't wait until you need it done yesterday to find a good tree service. Chances are when you need them it will be a yesterday situation and quality of the service and price is all over the board. We have used many over the years and have a really good one now, and I don't hesitate to recommend them locally. I want to see them stay in business for very selfish reasons. LOL.

congrats.. on opening NEW OPPORTUNITY...

no downside to that.. in my book

ken

I've had tree work done 3 times in the 10 years I've lived here. I enjoy pruning woody plants, but unfortunately, mature trees are too big and dangerous to prune. If I could, I would snap my fingers and take this branch off here and move that tree over there. I prune them in my mind all the time!! LOL

So instead the tree service owned by a friend comes with all his trucks and even though he is very reasonable it has cost me about 4 grand total over the years. My tree guy hasn't lacked for work around here though - he's been flat out since tropical storm Irene went through here last August - followed by that crazy October snow-storm and both resulted in extensive damage and power outages caused by downed limbs and trees.