The owner of this house was ready to have us take down this large sycamore tree because its roots were lifting his sidewalk. Had I been a greedy arborist, I could have charged him a lot of money and removed the tree as he wished. However, I told him how he could cut some roots, install a root barrier to prevent the roots from growing under his sidewalk in the future, thus saving the tree. Needless to say, he was elated at being able to keep his tree and save a boat load of money to boot.

Saving trees from the saw doesn’t seem to be a popular thing among many tree services, who prefer, instead, to make a quick buck while preying on people’s fears and ignorance about trees. As an example of this, I received a desperate call from a homeowner who lives in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. He has a large maple tree that he believes is savable, but that the City and a several tree services have told him must come out. A couple of arborist told him that the tree can be saved with some pruning to remove some hazardous branches; however, the city has sent him a demand letter that he remove it or they plan to trespass onto his property and remove it and put a lien on his house for the costs involved. No local tree services want to go up against the city on this issue, so are acquiescing to city’s demands, even though they know they can save the tree.

Thus, this man saw my blog where I brag about the trees we save, and he called me hoping I could help him even though I live more than 1,200 miles from him. I gave him a lot of free advice on how to deal with the situation, who to contact, and how to save his tree.

We are trying to make a difference by making the world a more beautiful place one tree at a time.

Speaking of beautiful trees, here are some photos of trees that I recently took. Please enjoy.