TREE REMOVAL & TREE PRUNING ALONG I-75

If you have driven on I-75 between Twelve Mile and Eight Mile you may have noticed a change in scenery. This stretch of I-75 runs through Royal Oak, Madison Heights, Ferndale and Hazel Park. Owen Tree Service has teamed up with the Michigan Department of Transportation to remove dead trees and prune off low branches on the remaining trees.

What has made this a particularly difficult tree removal & tree pruning job is the fifteen foot wall that separates the service drive and expressway. The dead Ash trees and the Hawthorn trees we removed had to be lifted up and over the wall to a staging spot on the service drive. This made it as safe as possible for the tree crew doing the tree removal work to chip up the brush. We used our log truck to handle this task along with voice activated headsets so the tree crew foreman could communicate with the log truck operator on the opposite side of the wall.  This had to be done without seeing each other - it was all done by voice and code words to lift each piece safely over the wall.

The steep grade along I-75 was no fun either. It was hard on the men and equipment to get this tree removal & tree pruning project completed. Once we had removed dead trees in one area we would then start pruning off low tree branches on the remaining trees in that area. The brush and limbs from the tree pruning would be lifted up and over the wall the same way we did the trees that we removed.

This project really made a difference for the daily commuters and business owners that travel and work along the part of I-75 that passes through Royal Oak, Madison Heights, Ferndale and Hazel Park. The dead trees have been removed and the remaining trees look a lot better with the low branches removed.

TREE CONSULTING AND TREE VALUATION

If you need to know the value of your grandmother's jewelry for your insurance, you consult an appraiser. If you need to know if a family member was the victim of improper medical treatment, you consult a lawyer and medical experts. In considering the value of your landscape trees, it is just as important to consult a knowledgeable professional. An ISA Certified Arborist is who you should consult with when it comes to determining the value of your landscape trees.

           

Our arborists do perform general consulting to inspect trees that have insect or disease pests, but we also are called upon to determine the value of landscape trees or inspect trees that have been damaged, such as:

• When a contractor destroys a major portion of the root system with machinery.
• Provide valuation of trees damaged in a fire.
• When a neighbor, in removing trees from his own property, takes down one of yours as well.
• When an automobile crashes onto your property, damaging one or more of your trees.

In each of these cases, you may be able to pursue legal action, but while a lawyer will be able to advise you as to your legal options, few law schools teach anything about tree care and tree valuation. For this, you will need to consider an expert witness – an arborist who has considerable professional knowledge of trees and tree care.

           

As a part of nature, trees can often be taken for granted. This means if you find yourself in a position of needing to go to court, you cannot be certain the court will regard your trees as anything more than incidental. Even if you are only retaining a lawyer in an attempt to reach an equitable settlement, the other parties involved may look at your trees as just an object of little significance. It’s important for you to know, and be able to prove, that the value of your landscape tree (especially a mature landscape tree) could be in the thousands of dollars.

If it comes down to a court determining “damages,” you have to make sure your tree is understood to be a thing of value. To provide for this, and to insure that your case is presented as completely as possible, you need an expert witness, one who can fully explain both the inherent value of your tree, and how the matter that has caused the dispute has impacted your tree in the first place.

           

Owen Tree Service has provided tree consulting, tree valuation and expert witness services across southeast Michigan. Hopefully, you will never have need of such services, but if you should, contact us at 1-800-724-6680 to arrange for a consultation. You have too much time, effort, and money invested in your landscaping to see any part of it simply disregarded.

For more information visit our Tree Consulting webpage: http://www.owentree.com/Consulting_Services.html