Late last fall, I received an email from a client (we’ll call him “Joe” for the purpose of this post) requesting consultation on his church’s champion Downy Hawthorn (Crataegus mollis.) Joe and I work together to care for many noteworthy trees on the grounds of various commercial properties he manages around town, but none of these trees has been a certified champion tree. Needless to say, I was quite excited to be involved.
Kris and I met Joe on site to take a look at the tree a few days later. Thanks to some invasive buckthorn removal in previous years, accessing and viewing the tree was easy…especially since the tree dwarfed its neighboring hawthorns in comparison. When we finally approached the tree, Kris and I were impressed with the girth of the trunk and the spread of the crown. We certainly hadn’t ever seen a hawthorn that large before.
Overall, the tree is in good condition. We noticed some deadwood, old stubs, and a small amount of diseased tissue as well as a potential weak point located where the two main stems come together. We also noticed some vigorous grass growing underneath the tree as well as some interference from other nearby trees.
Based on our visual assessment, we recommended the following services: herbicide application to competing grasses and invasive species, soil sample analysis to prescribe an appropriate fertilization program, soil amendment with composted manure, mulching with woodchips, fungicide applications this spring, pruning, and cabling.
The goal of the services we are providing is to improve the growing conditions of the tree, reduce competition by nearby vegetation, remove dead and diseased tissue, and reduce the risk of the tree failing in a storm. With annual fertilization, fungicide treatments, and careful monitoring, we hope to keep the tree in good health…and maintain its champion certification for years to come.
In case you haven’t seen it already, we hung lights on the big oak tree outside of Zingerman’s Roadhouse. The lighting was the closing part of a lecture we put on discussing the history, care and future of this tree.
When you get a chance, drive by at night and check it out. Let us know what you think.
All jokes aside, today was a sad day for one of our clients down in Manchester. As you can tell from this picture, her tree had a significant amount of decay in the trunk so we had to recommend removal. The tree was living, but with only 12% sound wood throughout the trunk, the risk of failure was high…especially due to nearby targets. The homeowner believed that the tree was planted around 1900 and we believe that her guess is pretty accurate. It was sad to see something that has been growing for a hundred years reduced to a stump in a matter of hours, but a failure at the wrong time would have been catastrophic.
Jack Richardson of Ann arbor won the 2009 Michigan Tree Climbing Championship (MTCC) that was held recently on the East Campus of Oakland University in Rochester, MI. Richardson competed with 30 of the state’s top professional tree climbers and 3 top climbers from Ohio and Indiana. As the overall winner of the event, Jack received cash and prizes that were provided by ArborMaster, Samson, Vermeer, Husqvarna, Buckingham, Oregon, Silky, Sherrill Tree and ASM. More importantly, Jack will now go on to represent our state at the 2010 International Tree Climbing Championship (ITCC) to be held in Chicago, Illinois next July.
The MTCC is an athletic event that is hosted by the Arboriculture Society of Michigan (ASM), the Michigan Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). Jack competed in five preliminary events in order to qualify for the winner-takes-all “Masters Challenge” event at the end of the day . The preliminary events include Secured Foot Lock, Belayed Speed Climb, Work Climb, Throwline, and Aerial Rescue. The MTCC events test the professional tree climber under simulated work conditions based on accuracy, safety, speed, style, innovation, and endurance all in a safe environment.
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