Are your trees plotting against you?

Trees grow, become large and eventually fail. So they fall.
You don’t want to be
underneath one when that happens.

The trees that surround your home, line the street over the
sidewalk or border roadways
are all at risk of failing. Some will fail sooner than
others.

Nothing is risk-free. All trees carry some risk. Past abuse,
storm damage, construction
injury and other things can increase the risk of failure.

Even minor events such as roots buckling sidewalks or
branches rubbing on a roof can
generate tree-associated risks.

Trees have value. People find great psychological, monetary,
aesthetic and utilitarian
values in them. They enjoy trees’ beauty and the wildlife they
attract.

In their restful shade, people relish trees’ reduction of
heat, glare, noise, erosion
and pollution. They delight in the white noise and oxygen trees
produce.

Trees raise property values and economic stability. Growing
in well-managed, productive
forests, they sustain the American way of family life.

Along with the many benefits they provide, trees also have
costs. They require some
investment in growing space, maintenance and care. Once dead,
trees are costly to remove.

One of the most overlooked tree costs is their liability
risk. Liabilities can include
ecological, biological, aesthetic, social, economic and safety
risks.

People want trees. But they also need to be safe from threats
to property and physical
injury.

Know the tree risks around your home, yard, street, school,
church and workplace. As
trees become massive and tall, even a single branch blown down
in a storm could damage
property and injure people.

Professionals examine trees for structural problems. At times
they can correct
problems. Most trees don’t need special structural support —
just good maintenance and
prevention of injury.

It’s important to understand how trees fail. Trees are
modular structures that grow in
stages, one part at a time. They also tend to fall apart one
piece at a time. They fail
along faults developed by injury, old damage, the environment
and people putting too much
stress on them.

Structural faults include large vertical cracks, large
decayed areas, narrow crotches
or forks, dead wood and branches, large cavities, major leans,
extensive root damage,
horizontal cracks, poorly connected living branches and pest-
damaged areas.

These faults may be the result of old injuries or new damage.
Many give way in wind and
ice storms.

Trees can’t heal themselves. They can only seal off the wound
and grow over it. Old
trees can be filled with many hidden faults from old
injuries.

Risk assessments on trees are hard to do and require a
thorough knowledge of tree
structure and failure. Each tree is different. On average,
though, major failures are 40
percent in branches, 30 percent in stems and 30 percent in
roots.

Even small problems can lead to large liability risks. But
not all large liability
risks require trees to be removed. Many "nonremoval"
risks commonly occur.

These risks include roots buckling pavement, damaging
building foundations and septic
systems and tripping people; slippery leaves and litter (fruits,
flowers or twigs) on
walkways; tree-dwelling animals biting or stinging people;
cavities entrapping kids or
pets; and face-level or low-lying branches causing injury or
blocking sight lines.

People can fear all the risks around them. Trees do present
risks. But the risks are
relatively small. Taking risks and accepting liability is a
modern fact of life. Trees are
well worth managing for all their benefits and associated
risks.

Using an informed approach to risks and tree-literate care
and maintenance, you can
have great trees. Seek help from tree-risk specialists,
arborists and community foresters.
Be sure trees are a "safe" investment at your
house.