TIMBER! – Preparing Your Trees For The Next Big Storm

By JAMIE L. COSTA

With the excitement of spring comes the promise of storms and strong winds, leaving many homeowners wondering how they can protect their trees against these winds and heavy snow.

An unexpectedly severe northeaster last fall exceeded the expectations of the Upper Cape region and felled more than 1,000 trees, causing damage to homes, vehicles and property throughout the area, with cleanup extending through the winter.

Storms like these are common in New England throughout the spring and the fall, and if not maintained and prepared properly, many trees fall victim to their environments.

“People don’t realize how powerful a tree can be when it’s put in a target area, like over a house, and then subject it to heavy snow or wind. We recommend everyone do consultations or evaluations of their properties before the storm season,” said Stephen Buckhoff, a certified arborist and owner of Seaside Arborists Tree Service in Bourne, in an interview this winter.

Mr. Buckhoff, like many arborists in the Cape Cod and South Shore regions, does not charge for consultations and encourages all homeowners to hire someone to evaluate their properties.

Working from the ground up, arborists look for obvious signs of damage such as dead trees, broken branches, crossed branches, dual trunks and uprooted trunks or roots before evaluating each tree individually, Mr. Buckhoff said.

“There are often a lot of trees that are compromised underground, and nobody knows it yet,” he said. “If you’re not a certified arborist, you might miss the fact that a root is coming up if you don’t step in the right area at the base of the tree.”

Stepping around the trunk of each tree, arborists often look and feel for air pockets, which happen when a root begins to come up and a pocket of air forms underneath, making the soil squishy and concave, Mr. Buckhoff said. They also check tree trunks for cavities, decay or abnormalities.

If abnormalities are identified during a consultation, homeowners are notified and advised to schedule an appointment to trim, prune or remove trees.

To prepare trees further, Mr. Buckhoff recommends having healthy trees trimmed and pruned during the winter to prepare for the spring growing season. Some trees such as evergreens—spruce, fir, pine and cedar—have to be thinned to reduce their likelihood of catching high winds and causing damage.

“It’s a great time of year to prune them and thin them out, so they’re not subject to wind, snow or ice loads,” Mr. Buckhoff said. “That, with the wind load, equals failure.”

Without the help of an arborist, homeowners can walk their properties and look for visible red flags before calling someone for maintenance, he continued.

“If they can trim, prune, cut down trees on their own, that’s great, but be very safe,” Mr. Buckhoff said. “Know your limits, and know when to call a professional. Your life is not worth saving the money.”

Annually, about 100 people die while trying to maintain and trim their own trees. In the tree service industry, those numbers are higher.

“It’s not that cheap, and people feel like they can’t afford it, so they try to do it themselves and injure themselves,” Mr. Buckhoff said. “The younger generation will spend the money to have someone do it, but it’s the older generations that will hurt themselves because they don’t want to spend the money.”

Once the season starts, applying fertilizer to improve the overall health of the tree is beneficial in maintaining its strength, Sandwich Tree Warden Craig Geddis said. A kelp- or fish-based fertilizer improves root structure and lowers the chances of uprooting trees.

“There are also hormone applications that can reduce the leaf size and reduce the amount of growth a tree has every year,” Mr. Geddis said. “Once the windsail value is reduced, you can help keep it reduced by applying these hormone applications.”

However, these suggestions only apply to privately owned properties and do not extend to town property trees, which need to be maintained and pruned by town officials, or homeowners can seek approval from the tree warden.

“With private trees, there are no regulations,” Mr. Geddis said. “If it crosses the property line, both property owners have title to it. You can prune town trees, if the limbs are encroaching on your home or building.”

When booking appointments and consultations, most tree companies schedule out a month or two in advance, Mr. Geddis said. Being proactive and considering tree care ahead of seasonal storms are essential to curating healthy trees and reducing the risk of damage to personal property.

“Don’t be deterred by how long it takes for someone to come out and evaluate the property,” Mr. Buckhoff said. “There are only a certain number of us on the Cape, and there are so many people that need tree work and evaluations.”