When your out and about going to stores, eating, running errands. Many times you go into a commercial area filled with different businesses. The developers often have a master plan of what it will look like when all the plants and trees are fully developed. They strategically plant trees and shrubs for a variety of reasons. Shade, security, separating lots. A fully shaded lot will last much longer than one in full sun. They spend a lot of money with landscape architects, landscape contractors and turf maintenance. Once they have been open for a few years, that new fresh landscape looks tired and worn out, why? Many times over, it is improper maintenance. We live in area that gets all seasons. Its 200 below in winter and hot as the sun itself in July. The plants deal with this too. In winter, they hire snow removal contractors that push snow into trees and shrubs, then dump ungodly amounts of salt to keep the lot from becoming a hazard to pedestrians, a necessary evil. In the summer, foot traffic breaks irrigation heads. People back into the landscape, breaking branches, ripping bark of small trees. Lets just agree, the landscape at commercial property’s gets abuse from all angles. Especially the trees. Trees can be a great asset to a property, or they can be a hazard. Dropping branches on people or cars. Improperly maintained trees often suffer from over pruning, lack of nutrients or water. Sometimes they are shaped like a shrub with hedge trimmers ( its a tree, not a juniper) You never prune a tree with a hedge trimmer, super uncool.
Commercial Property owners often hire one of the larger landscape maintenance outfits to take care of their grounds. These are often the same people that perform snow removal and ice management. They come each week with the mow, blow and go mindset. They try to get as many done in a day as possible to maximize that profit. I get that. But they do a disservice to the property owner. They are not taking care of the the most important part of the landscape, the tree’s. The property owner will spend thousands and thousands installing a large amount of small 3-5 inch caliper trees. Once in the ground, they often get overlooked or forgotten about all together. They are forgotten and left to grow, with no maintenance. They will grow to the sun, often having low, long reaching branches that are often right at eye level. Or hang low over the parking lot scratching cars or getting caught by the tops of delivery trucks. And instead of having a Arborist come in and properly prune them, they just tell the landscapers to hack them back. Making horrible cuts with stubs, flush cuts and peels, damaging the tree. Then, in winter, this same damaged tree gets a ton of salty snow pushed into its area, saturating the soil with salt. This greatly affects the trees health and often leads to the tree dying. If you look at the strip malls, big box stores, you always see a few little trees that are toasty dead and the rest are suffering. They are really thick in the middle with erratic growth that does not allow wind to move through them, which ends up turning them into a sail that will break in a wind event. They are yellowish or filled with dead branches from either salt burn, lack of nutrients, lack of water and compressed soil. This is what happens when trees are installed at a commercial property and never visited by a Arborist. If these tress had a Arborist looking after them, they would last for years, growing into a large tree’s, producing oxygen and providing shade for both the parking lot and the patrons visiting the site. The oxygen is pretty cool too, just sayin! Not to mention they would be beautiful, instead of a eye sore. Tree’s are often planted in the middle of a large parking lot in those little islands that have a curb around them and a lil bit of grass or landscape. The plants often die and the grass get trampled and looks horrible. Often creating dirt spots. Then it rains, the patrons step in the dirt…mud and track it into the store. Making the store manager mad and they contact the landlord to complain! So they rip out the grass and plants and just put either mulch or rock in. Never paying any attention the the poor tree trapped in the middle. These trees suffer their whole life. They are planted in what we call a heat island. They have a little space it which they can get water and maybe a lil bit of nutrients. Their root system tries to grow under the lot, but cannot get any water or oxygen down there to help carry nutrients up. So the root system stays very small and the trees become lethargic. It could be helped if there were several island through out the lot giving them other areas to get what they need, but that expense is not easily swallowed. So they put in the minimum required by code. These trees suffer until they ultimately die. If a Arborist was given the opportunity to care for them, there are several things he could do to help those trees thrive. But the property owner has to bring one in! It is often a completely overlooked subject that has gone on for years. Next time your out and about hitting the stores. Pay attention to the trees on the site. You will see what I mean. If you are the property owner, take a hard look at the tree’s you invested in. Ya paid a lot of money for them, they can be a huge asset, not a huge liability, if properly taken care of by a Arborist. Landscapers are not Arborist. Many think they are, but they are far from it. There are many things that go into taking care of a tree, its not just cutting them back out of the way so your guys don’t hit it when mowing. Even landscape maintenance company’s, when given a large maintenance contract should bring in specialist for certain things. An Arborist for the trees. A Irrigation tech for the sprinkler system, etc. When doing snow removal, try not smashing your blade into the trees. How about pushing the snow away from the tree instead of into it!
If you have several property’s, it would be wise to spend the money to have a Pro Arborist take control of your investment. A shaded property looks better, last’s longer, is more appealing to the customer and increases the property value.
Having them looked over and maintained at least once a year is wise choice.
Calling me to do it is the work of a genius!