Dead Branch Removal In Scotland, Ontario

Why Does Dry Sand Kill Branches From The Top Down?

When water runs out, a tree lets go of whatever costs the most to keep alive, and that is always the highest wood it carries.

It explains the shape of most dead branch removal jobs on this crest. There is bare wood at the very top and healthy foliage everywhere below. No infection is involved. The tree hit a water shortage and cut its losses.

Why Is It Different On The Wet Ground Toward Oakland?

Nearer Oakland Swamp everything is the other way about. Waterlogged ground starves roots of oxygen, and a tree unable to breathe below also starts dropping wood above.

Willow and silver maple race away on wet soil, and speed produces weak timber that fails far sooner than oak does on the high ground. Properties down there need dead branch removal more often.

Dead Ash Trees Are A Common Problem Around Scotland

Dismantling a dead ash ranks among the most demanding work in the trade. Brittle timber, limbs letting go with nothing to announce it, and risks best left to people who have already done a few.

This county has had emerald ash borer since roughly 2010 and healthy ash has become a rarity. Farm yards and fence lines were never inventoried, which is why dead ash still stands in numbers throughout the area. You can have us clear the dead wood out of one, or take the entire tree away.

Which Dead Branches Should Be Dealt With First?

In dead branch removal, top priority always goes to a hanger, which is a limb broken off and now caught up in the branches. Gravity will finish the job eventually and nobody can say when.

We treat these as urgent:

- Anything snapped and suspended, lodged in the canopy or dangling on a ribbon of bark - Dead wood over the entrance, the parking area, the path or the drive - Dead wood above a public road or a route children walk - Anything dead close enough to touch a hydro line

Where the only thing below is lawn, the same limb can sit until your next scheduled appointment.

What Are The Signs Of A Dead Branch?

These four are visible from the lawn with no ladder and no binoculars. Seeing one is reason enough to telephone us:

- One limb in leafless condition at midsummer, surrounded by green - Plates of bark coming away to expose dry grey timber - Shelf fungus on a branch, or a circle of it around the trunk base - Light scoured areas on ash bark, left where woodpeckers have hunted larvae

If you cannot judge it from ground level, coming to check costs you nothing.

What Does A Dead Branch Removal Visit Involve?

The whole canopy is inspected first. One dead limb is seldom the only one, and dealing with everything at once avoids paying travel twice.

During a dead branch removal, material over a roof or a drive descends on rigging rather than falling. Brush goes into the chipper and off the property, and we rake before we go.