Tree service questions, answered

Not automatically. The question is whether the root plate moved. Look on the side away from the lean: cracked or heaved soil, a lifted mat of turf, roots showing where they weren’t. Those mean the tree moved in the ground and it should be treated as live. A tree that has leaned for twenty years has grown to carry that load. How old the lean is is the first thing we ask.

Slower than you’d like, and the order is set by danger rather than by who called first. A limb hanging over an occupied room comes before a tree lying flat in an empty yard, however dramatic the second one looks. If you’re behind something more urgent, you’ll be told that instead of being given a time that quietly passes.

Often, in Florida, and it depends on the city, the county, your subdivision and the size of the tree. State law also exempts removal on residential property where a qualified professional has documented a danger, with real conditions on who may write that. We tell you which of those you’re in. We never tell you a permit is unnecessary because we’d like the work today.

Yes, once the scope is approved in writing. That’s much of the point of writing it: the crew works to a document, and the card is left for you to check against the tree.

No, not as pruning. Topping a tree makes it push out fast, weakly attached shoots from every wound, and within a few years it is more likely to drop something on the roof, not less. When a tree genuinely needs to be smaller, a crown reduction shortens the limbs back to living side branches instead. When a tree is coming down anyway, taking it apart from the top is a removal, and nobody expects it to live.

About a quarter of the live crown in a season, less on an old or stressed tree. That’s the ANSI A300 working figure, and we write the actual percentage on the card. It’s usually far less than people expect.

Because a palm can’t grow a replacement from the trunk. Every green frond removed is capacity gone until the palm grows a new one. A hurricane cut leaves a thin head that’s more likely to snap, not less.

No. Wound dressing traps moisture against the cut and doesn’t stop decay. A tree walls damage off from the inside and closes over the cut from the collar outward. Paint gets in the way and hides the cut from anyone checking it later.

Where two stems of similar size grow up together, bark can get pinched between them instead of wood. It’s one of the most common defects on Florida oaks, and it’s where trees split. See cabling and bracing.

It’s a separate line on the scope, with a separate machine and sometimes a separate day. We grind below grade, not level with the lawn, and take the surface roots that catch the mower. A stump makes a surprising pile of grindings, so you choose whether they’re hauled or left to settle.

Whatever you prefer, priced as its own line: chipped and taken, cut to firewood length and stacked, or chips blown back into your beds as mulch, kept off the trunk flare.