Tree services for Upper Arlington.

Tree Health Assessment

I walk the property and examine each tree — canopy, bark, root flare. Pest pressure, fungal fruiting, structural defects, decline. You get honest, written findings in your tree's chart, with recommendations you can act on or not. Sometimes the recommendation is "do nothing, and watch it." That's a good visit — honest evaluation, no upsell.

Pruning, Crown Work & Tree Trimming

Structural pruning and tree trimming, deadwood removal, and canopy shaping. Hand tools first — Silky saws, Felco pruners, blades kept sterile and sharp — with precise cuts at the collar so the tree can compartmentalize and close. I work with the tree's natural form, not against it. The Stihl comes out only when diameter requires it.

After the Utility Crew

Line clearance is a legitimate job, done fast, by a crew whose assignment is the wire — not your tree. What's left is often a canopy taken hard off one side, stubs cut between growth points where the tree has nothing to seal toward, and a center of gravity nobody was asked to think about. That tree usually isn't ruined. It's unfinished.

I clean the stubs back to a point the tree can actually close over, take weight off what's now leaning, and lay out the two or three years of pruning it takes to bring the crown back toward balance. And if the crew hasn't come yet, text me before they do — I'll walk the job with you and speak the language.

Wound Care

Surgical repair of lawnmower damage, bark tears, and prior improper cuts. Sterile razor work to shape ragged wounds so the tree can compartmentalize decay instead of inviting it in. More UA tree decline traces back to mowers, mulch, and planting depth than to anything an insect ever did — this is where a lot of it gets fixed.

Young Tree Training

Early structural pruning in the first ten years prevents the expensive problems at maturity — competing leaders, codominant stems, bark inclusion. Me on a ladder now, or a bucket-truck crew and an insurance claim in twenty years. The best money you will ever spend on a tree is while it's young.

Fruit Tree Care

Backyard peach, apple, and pear are a specialty — I learned this work managing a hundred-tree heritage apple orchard in Pennsylvania. Pruning for light and airflow, thinning for fruit size, and pest management timed to the insect, not the calendar. A neglected fruit tree is a pest nursery; a tended one is the best thing in your yard.

Shrubs & Ornamentals

Japanese maples, dogwoods, magnolias, specimen conifers — the decorative species a yard is built around — trained and tended with hand tools. Shrubs and hedges get the same reading: pruned for natural shape, airflow, and light, thinned from the inside instead of sheared into balls and boxes. A sheared shell looks tidy for a season and then shades out its own interior until there's nothing left but a green crust over deadwood.

These are also the plants most often set too deep, too wet, or too close to a downspout, and the ones a landscape crew is most likely to have been "maintaining" for a decade. I read the siting and the soil before I touch the plant — an ornamental that's declining because it's buried doesn't need pruning.

Trunk Injections

Emerald Ash Borer has killed most of the ash it's found in central Ohio — an untreated ash is a tree on a timer. Trunk injection puts the treatment inside the tree on a multi-year cycle, timed and dosed by a licensed applicator who's also watching your tree the rest of the year. Oaks and other injectable programs are quoted the same way. Already on a national company's injection program? Bring me the receipt — I'll beat it in a way that matters, and your trees come under local eyes.

Root Crown Excavation

The most common slow killer in UA yards isn't a pest — it's a buried root flare. Mulch volcanoes and deep planting smother the trunk right where it needs air, and the tree declines for years before anyone connects the dots. I carefully excavate the root crown, expose the flare, correct girdling roots, and give the tree its footing back. If your tree's trunk goes into the ground like a telephone pole instead of flaring like the base of a wine glass, text me a photo.

Soil, Tissue & Lab Analysis

Soil, tissue, and specimen analysis — I pull the sample, submit it to a university lab, and interpret what comes back. Soil work reads pH, texture, and nutrients; leaf-tissue analysis reads what the tree is actually taking up, which is a different question and often a different answer. Pathogen identification when a disease needs a name. Diagnosis, not treatment: a name before a plan.

The wrong soil quietly starves the right tree, and a guess is not a diagnosis. Results and amendment recommendations land in your tree's chart. Want the testing and the feeding on a standing rhythm? That's the Soil & Nutrition Program — from $449/year by canopy size, spec'd from your own lab report.

Fertilization & Deep-Root Feeding

It starts underground. Deep-root fertilization and soil amendment, placed in the root zone where the tree is actually feeding, matched to what a lab says your ground is short — not a bag guessed at the store.

That distinction carries more weight here than most places. Upper Arlington's ground is high-pH and lime-buffered, which locks up iron and manganese no matter how much general-purpose fertilizer goes down, and seventy years of lawn care have left most yards already loaded with phosphorus. Feeding blind can push soft growth an insect is glad to find, or add a nutrient the soil didn't need. So the lab report comes first, and the feeding is spec'd off your numbers. On a standing rhythm — two seasonal feedings a year and a winter write-up — that's the Soil & Nutrition Program.

Storm Response

Hanging limbs, split leaders, debris on the roof. Call or text after a storm and I'll assess same day when I can — what's safe to leave, what needs a cut, and what genuinely needs a crew. Tree Steward clients are first in line.

Tree Removal

Yes — done the arborist's way. I make my living keeping trees alive, so I'll never sell a removal you don't need. When one has to come down, I spec the job, bring in the crew I trust, and stay on it — proper rigging, the canopy around it protected, priced fairly. Then the part nobody else offers: I read the tree on its way down, every branch and cavity, to determine the cause of failure — and that finding informs how we care for the rest of your trees. Utility company wants to cut? I'll walk that job with you too and speak the language. And I still show up the morning of with Tremont Goodie Shop doughnuts for the guys.

Second Opinion

Got a quote that made your stomach drop, or a diagnosis that arrived with a treatment plan attached and no evidence behind it? Bring it to me. I'll walk the tree and tell you what I see: whether the work is needed, optional, or wrong. Sometimes the answer is that the other company is right — you get that straight too, and I'll tell you their price is fair.

The same visit covers a consultation with nothing to sell at the end of it. Buying a house and want the big oak out back looked at before you sign. Settling an estate. Sorting out a property-line tree with a neighbor. Or just wanting somebody to stand in the yard with you and say what you're looking at.

Planting & Placement

A tree you plant today is a fifty-year decision. I read the site, test the soil, match the species — native first — and plant at the right depth with the early training that makes a strong tree. It's enough of its own subject that it has its own page.