Check your own tree
Ten things, and seven of them are not an emergency.
Tick your way down it standing underneath the tree. Nothing here is submitted anywhere and nothing is scored — publishing this costs us work and it is the honest version of what an assessment finds.
Loading the tree…
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A new lean, with soil lifted on the opposite side
New is the word that matters. A tree that has leaned for thirty years is a tree that leans. Fresh cracked soil and exposed roots on the far side is a root plate moving, and that is the one to ring about today.
All ten, by what to do
Ring somebody
Worth a look
Usually fine
The same ten as a checklist, to tick standing under it.
Nothing is submitted and nothing is scored. It works with the picture above turned off, on a phone, in a garden.
Ring somebody
New is the word that matters. A tree that has leaned for thirty years is a tree that leans. Fresh cracked soil and exposed roots on the far side is a root plate moving, and that is the one to ring about today.
Ring somebody
Particularly where two stems join. A crack you can put a coin into, running down from a union, is a failure in progress.
Ring somebody
Shelf-like growths on the trunk or root flare mean decay inside. The tree may stand for years, but the decay does not reverse and it should be looked at.
Worth a look
Normal in every mature tree to some degree. It matters when the deadwood is over something you care about, and it is a pruning job rather than a removal.
Worth a look
Alarming and usually less serious than it looks. Trees are engineered as hollow tubes and many stand for decades with a cavity. What matters is how much sound wood is left around it, which needs measuring rather than guessing.
Worth a look
A pruning job, and a cheap one. Wires belonging to the utility are their job — ring them and do not go near it.
Worth a look
Worth watching over a season. It can be drought, root damage from a driveway, or nothing at all. One thin summer is not an emergency.
Usually fine
Nothing. It grows on healthy trees, dead trees, and fence posts. It is the single most common reason somebody rings us and the answer is always that it is fine.
Usually fine
Usually a wound sealing itself, which is what a tree does instead of healing. Worth mentioning at a visit, not worth a visit of its own.
Usually fine
A path problem, not a tree problem. Cutting those roots to fix the path is how a healthy tree becomes a hazardous one, so the path gets moved or ramped instead.
This checklist is general information and is not a substitute for looking at your tree. If two or three of the first three apply, ring somebody today — us or anybody.
What an assessment adds
Measuring how much sound wood is left around a cavity, sounding the trunk, looking at the root plate properly, and putting it in writing in a form an insurer or a neighbour will accept. Two hundred and sixty dollars, credited against any work, and about a third of them conclude that nothing needs doing.
10 signs is what a homeowner can see. The rest needs somebody in the tree.