Before & After Tree Care

  • Thread starter Thread starter bonner1040
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bonner1040

bonner1040

Nick from Ohio
Joined
Nov 25, 2011
Messages
5,853
Location
Indianapolis / Cleveland
One of the best parts of the job is seeing the dramatic difference we can make in the appearance of a tree or landscape.

Whether you are pruning large trees, ornamentals or hedges; airspading, excavating, etc... Lets see the before and after.

I will start it off with a locust I trimmed for a side job.

Before:
Rosati Locust Before Tall.jpg

After:
Rosati Locust After Wide.jpg

I regularly take video of the work I do, but rarely stills much less before shots. I am going to try and find my digital still cam and see if I cant get some more.
 

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It's difficult to get good pics of trims.

1zd2mf4.jpg


9psxs2.jpg
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #4
Those pics look good, You really lifted it up! Ill bet the customer loved the clearance to the house too.. Its amazing how much brush a hard prune can generate sometimes.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #6
WOW, thats a really good looking tree... What kind is it? I will bet those are difficult to climb being all spread out like that. What a great pic!
 
Those Live Oaks are really beautiful.
What's their latin name? Quercus virginiana?
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #10
MasterBlaster said:
They're Live Oaks, brother. :drink:
Click to expand...

We do not have those in Ohio... Not that I have ever seen.

From: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100413095344AAeAKny

Do live oak grow in ohio?
either naturally of if they're planted?

No. It gets much too cold in Ohio for them Live oak are only hardy to zone 8 which means that is cannot get colder than 10 °F. Ohio is zone 5 and 6.

Although the other answer says they would, in the right soil, still yet, never saw one. What a great tree, thanks for sharing the pic!
 
Most 'pruning' around here consists of the climber going 2/3 of the way up the tree and cutting every green leaf he can reach on his way down. The longer I'm in this business the less I want to prune for most tree guys. It's actually easier pruning for my two big landscaper clients because they never tell me how to prune a tree other than a general idea of what the client wants.
 
Few people prune around here. Those that do, often strip the tree and over prune. Not me. I don't remove all the low foliage. They think elevating the heck out of the tree is pruning. That or they tie in part way up, and just cut off everything they can reach on their way down. I prune properly. I don't regularly sit and pick away at the limb tips with a pole saw. In my experience, guys do that because they think it is supposed to be done, not because they have paid attention to the long term results. Which I have found to be nothing. I punch some holes in the canopy, remove damaged limbs, remove suckers and limbs that dont play into a good scaffolding. I try and leave unique limbs and natural twists and turns in the tree. It's character.

I turn away plenty of pruning. If the tree doesn't need it, I don't want to go up end cut limbs out just to make people think they got tree work done. That's not fair. I tell them call me back in a few years.
 
There's all different types of pruning and all different types of reasons for doing it. Hell I'll prune trees for money anyday over just removing them.
 
A lot of my customers these days I just say the mature tree looks fine. Leave it alone! They seem shocked. I hate raising trees, don't enjoy trying to make them smaller either, but I sometimes enjoy playing around on ornamentals. Doing a big reduction and having it look nice and shapely in the end is rewarding. Hedges I despise.
 
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  • #18
I like pruning/deadwooding large mature trees. Big oaks and maples: the line angles, swings and limbwalks, the climbing is the best part of the day. Ill take a big locust prune ver ornamentals any day.

The ones I showed so far are all medium sized trees I guess, the oak today(no pics) was pretty big. We have a $4000 pruning job coming up so I am looking forward to some big climbs and good pictures.
 
I agree. I don't always offer what it is that makes the customer happy. For reasons of house clearance and all that, yes. But if I did for customers the things the people here ask for, id leave behind a lot of destroyed trees. People in these parts come up with some brutal ideas. When they ask me to trim their trees, I immediately ask what their version of trimming is.
 
Hell yah, deadwooding and a general clean-up of a nice big mature tree that's been neglected for ages makes them look night and day. I wish I had some before and after pics of alot of my prunes. I'm not big on crown-raising unless there's a reason for the clearance. I'm not a fan of making big clearance over roofs/structures as imo it just gives more room for the tree or a piece of the tree to accelerate and do some serious damage if there's a failure. I like close but no touchy.
 
Tucker943 said:
I agree. I don't always offer what it is that makes the customer happy. For reasons of house clearance and all that, yes. But if I did for customers the things the people here ask for, id leave behind a lot of destroyed trees. People in these parts come up with some brutal ideas. When they ask me to trim their trees, I immediately ask what their version of trimming is.
Click to expand...

Exactly, Chris. We're supposed to be the experts and know how to do it right, but so many guys don't care what's right or wrong and will cut whatever the customer wants, however the customer wants. I guess that's one of the differences between an arborist and a tree cutter.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #23
usually I dont even ask the customer. Work order says prune; I throw my line, climb into the tree and prune it to my liking, come on down, cleanup and on to the next one.

Really, I just have to please the boss, or at most the salesman. Our customers, for the most part just want us to do the work and arent interested in 'as directed'. There are however exceptions of course, like anyone we get the meddling clients.
 
I always felt that if mechanics did what customers told them to do, there would be a lot of broken cars. Same with electricians. Lots of burned down houses. I let the customer tell me their goals and ideas. I offer them the solution I see fit. If my solutions don't fit the bill for them, we do business. If they want me to do what I know doesn't work, I just move on.

I've swayed a LOT of folks toward quality pruning in my area. I've also been laughed at by a lot of people for my mentallity. My region is truly the home of bad tree work. I regret setting up shop here a lot.
 
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