how long?

[treeman82]

Just wondering to myself here... how long do you all feel that it will take to weed out the neandertalls from the tree care industry? I am not talking so much about equipment, or climbing systems, as much as I am things like; topping, lionstailing, spiking prunes, etc. Any thoughts?
I had talked with a kid I went to vocational school with back in high school. The kid now works for a "tree care company" where, when he can't reach a prune with the bucket, or crane... he simply spikes up the tree, because "time is money" Just wondering when those types of people / practices will be gone.. or close to gone

 

[Ryan Willock]

there is always someone who doesn't care about quality, they just want the lowest price and they want it done NOW as cheap as possible and there will always be some one who has no pride in their work let alone the ambition or drive to learn to do things correctly. they get through life by halfa$$ing it

 

[TREETX]

Never unless there is real regulation in the industry and real certification that goes with the regulation.

Not saying that I am for said animal but it will exist until then.

 

[Treeman14]

Ummm, are not "soon" and "not too distant future" the same thing?

 

[Tim Gardner]

Originally posted by TREETX
Never unless there is real regulation in the industry and real certification that goes with the regulation.

Not saying that I am for said animal but it will exist until then.

You make a good point and I agree with you. Regulation is the only way to get rid of the hacks. The problem is that unless it is enforced it will only cause problems with the honest tree services. Even with regulation and enforcement there will always be the fly by night guys sneaking around tearing up yards.

 

[Menchhofer]

Iagree there will always be hackers all around until the consumer becomes educated and becomes aware of the difference between tree care and needless tree services.

 

[TREETX]

Menchhofer brings up a good point. At the other end of just doing "bad hack" work, are the companies that cable every limb and broadcast fert everything. Over selling tree care exists as well to the point that trees are done a real disservice. I call that selling warm fuzzies and not tree care. It is possible to love trees to death. More does not equal better.

 

[treeclimber165]

I think educating the public is also a major issue. There are WAYYYYYYYYY too many people who still want EVERY limb removed from over the house "Because it will fall and break my roof", and many who still want trees topped "Because it's too tall".

 

[TREETX]

In the direction of roof paranoia - the ones that want everything lifted away from a roof so they don't have to worry about clearance for a decade. If a little is good, more is better.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

As long as the industry is looked upon as semiskilled labor that anyone can do if they have a ladder and a saw, there will be uneducated workers in tres.

 

[Froggy]

Reply

It will depend on how educated the customer is on the tree and it's health. Some times the customer demands time efficient work instead of quality. No matter how much you try to tell them different. So it will all have to do with how well we educate our customers.

 

[Stumper]

NEVER. Regulation won't stop hacks. I say that with certainty. Regulation hasn't stopped shoddy work and dishonest dealing in any other industry so I can't see it stopping it in ours. Education helps. A LOT! Unfortunately some people won't learn soon enough and others refuse to learn at all. There will always be victims and victimizers till God pulls the plug on this world.

 

[geofore]

how long

Near to never as long as anyone can buy a saw, powered or not. want to build a house? Dozer the trees, you don't even need a saw. It is not so much the hacks as the need to teach it is a good thing to plant trees. A hack can take a tree down in a miniute, it will take years to grow a new tree. How many have you planted in your lifetime? More than you will cut down? Most homeowners ask questions about trees like trees grow as fast as the grass in their lawn, drives you crazy. One township near here wants a $5 permit fee for any tree you cut down over 6" diameter and they want a written explaination for why you are going to cut any tree bigger than that. I don't see that as a way of getting rid of hacks but as a way to collect more taxes. Who in the USA wants the government telling and charging you for cutting down trees on your own property? They didn't pay me to plant the 14,000 I planted and they didn't give me a tax break for planting them. Would I want to pay $5 apiece to cut them down? He!! no. Regulation is not the answer if you put a nitwit in charge. Who pays for the ones that fall down on their own? Hacks will be with us until they learn how to do it right.

 

[treeclimber165]

Geofore touched on it- What some here aren't considering is that many homeowners are very determined when it comes to butchering their trees. If they cannot find a hack to do their dirty work, they get a ladder and a Homelite and attempt to do it themselves.

 

[hillbilly]

Is the situation this depressing everywhere ?

All these photos are taken on the same street
a couple of days ago in a "more classy" part of
Stockholm. Many of these abuses seems to have
been done very recently.
http://www.farfarsfavoriter.com/~oskar/vandalism/

 

[hillbilly]

Is the situation...[part 2]

I have an idea on how this could happen.
People saw their neighbours trees being topped
and thought "wow, those guys could make
the trees half their height, we gotta
hire them to do our trees too, got the number?".
Then it spread like the fire.
Part of the problem seems to be the knowledge gap.
The "hacks" don't know better than to top the trees.
The customers think that these people are
"professionals" since they do it all day and got
lots of equipment, therefore they know what
you can and can not do to a tree.
Then there is also a major group (mostly male) customers
who say "Glad you stopped by to give me an estimate,
I could have done the job myself, but my ladder just
aint long enough."
If you wanna work on trees that are taller than 15 ft and
never been topped you gotta work for the city around here.
Getting a bit fed up with the industry, and I'm still an
apprentice!
Please cheer me up by telling me of tree loving customers
and some professionalism in other parts of the world.

 

[Stumper]

Hillbilly, Hack jobs like those are self perpetuating.-besides the incompetent "professionals" there are do-it-yourselfers who notice the "pruning" and say"I can do that!". Good pruning is self perpetuating to-it just takes longer for the idea to spread. I used to live in a city where the pics you posted were typical. After several years there it was becoming less common and I had more work (to do properly) than I could do. The city where I now live is much better-I get relatively few requests for topping and several first time customers have said "I don't want them topped-that's wrong." Don't give up hope!

 

[TREETX]

I have seen the same things Hillbilly is showing in Europe. Small gardens with mature trees. They want the trees and the sun. The solutions are devastating. People want the Blackforest and the Riviera in their garden.

Crown reduction and drop crotching end up in a situation where a leader is taken back to a lateral 1/10th the diameter of the leader. End result is topping. Agressive heading is devastating to poor comparmentalizers like birch.

What if the permit was not available for any amount of cash?? What if the penalty was like in parts of Europe - $50,000 if you remove a tree larger than 40cm in diameter w/out a permit? Laws like that hurt trees because there is a mad rush to remove trees before they reach 40cm in diameter. Ones larger than that can't be removed so they are topped to cause decline and inevitable removal.

I am not proud of it but here is a birch I topped last year because a permit for its removal was not granted.

Problems occur with regulation because broadcast presciptions don't do well in the realm of forestry.

Note: All of the trees to the right have been topped. They take one top a year for a Christmas tree.

 

[budroe69moni]

you can try to regulate the industry all you want
but until the pubic is educated about proper tree care
and about selecting arborists, and only arborists, to care
for there trees, it won't make a bit of difference!!!! the
ISA and NAA need to step up to the plate and do some
aggressive educational advertising and public service
anouncements to turn this problem around. also, until 20/20,
48 hrs, or 60 minutes does an "in-depth" prob into "hacks
in the tree care industry"......the average joe will be hiring
tree guys on price alone!!! imho.
budroe educating one customer at a time!!!!!

 

[TREETX]

People will be slow to giving a flip about tree care unless the info is delivered in a way that shows good tree care = $$ in property value and a legacy for a future generation as opposed to a decrease in property value and a liability for retirement savings.

These points will make more headway than the minutia of pruning techniques and species selection.