Hazard Tree Work Completed

Large tree being pruned of dead limbs using an aerial lift at Crow’s Nest Preserve

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager.

We completed a couple days of hazard tree work last week with an arborist contractor. This work is an annual effort, though I’d hoped to have less of it this year since we have completed the removal of all the dead ash trees along roadsides at the preserve.

But this was another big year as older trees have declined; we also wanted to be ahead of the curve for trees that would eventually grow too close to wires (photo above). While power company arborists will eventually address this problem they usually prune just the branches nearest the wires, and we wanted to redirect tree growth upward and away from the wires entirely—or in the case where there won’t be room for a mature oak (for example) to exist in the future in a particular spot, we removed it now before it crowded other, smaller species. If we did our job well it shouldn’t look like we were there at all.

Not all the work was hazard tree removals. In the top photo, arborist Kevin Lamphere is pruning dead wood out of the large black gum on Northside Road known as the “courting tree.”  Kevin considers it a privilege to take care of these trees.