Droughty Sand Sheds From The Top Down
There is more dead branch removal on this ridge than owners expect, and the reason is water rather than disease.
The Scotland soil series drains fast enough that a mature tree is short by mid-August in an ordinary year.
Running short, a tree drops the most expensive parts of itself first. Those are always the outer and upper branches, which is exactly the part invisible from a lawn.
The Wet Ground Toward Oakland Does It Differently
Down off the moraine the deadwood comes from poor rooting rather than drought.
Roots that never had to go deep sit in a shallow plate, oxygen runs out beneath them, and the tree sheds from the top for the opposite reason.
Same symptom, different cause, and the dead branch removal changes with it.
Ash Deadwood Is Its Own Category
Borer-killed ash dries to the core and lets go at the crotch rather than snapping partway out a branch.
A union is precisely where a climbing rope and a rigging rope place their load. Past a stage of brittleness, dead branch removal by climbing is no longer available.
Beyond that stage you are choosing between a bucket, a crane, and dropping the lot, and it is the equipment rather than the diameter that sets the price.
Hangers Move To The Front Of The List
Snapped but still airborne, caught up in branches or dangling from a ribbon of bark.
Gravity finishes it eventually. What matters is what is standing underneath on the day.
Use the word when you call and the dead branch removal gets moved ahead of routine work.
Four Signs Worth A Call
Any single one justifies a dead branch removal call. Collecting all four is not required.
Midsummer and one branch carries nothing while its neighbours are green.
Bark lifting away in sheets, grey dried timber underneath.
Shelf fungus emerging along a branch or at ground level, which means the decay feeding it started seasons ago.
Ash in particular: pale areas where woodpeckers have stripped outer bark chasing grubs.