tree health

[Cindy Decker]

I hope everyone came through the windstorm with minimal damage, although I know a Mimring house was badly damaged by a falling tree. We have a lot of little twigs down, but nothing serious. 

Like I said yesterday, I encourage everyone to work with an arborist for annual inspections and pruning of trees. Trees are not self-maintaining.   With so many on our property, Jeff and I have a little work done every year to avoid giant bills.   

An arborist will prune dead wood and look over the entire health of a tree.  

Trees usually give warning that they are in trouble. Leaves might be smaller, some branches might have died, fungus might be growing on the trunk.  Now, the occasional dead branch can be normal, and fungus doesn't mean a tree is doomed. That's why you need a professional to make the diagnosis. Sometimes you just need to prune the dead wood.

An arborist will also assess the canopy.  A thick canopy creates a sail that can uproot a tree. 

After this storm,  we all should look at the base of the trees. Given all the rain we've had, roots might have loosened with the rocking of the tree in the high winds. 

 

Jeff and I lost two trees some years ago to such a storm.  They were healthy otherwise, but enough roots had given way that the trees were a danger in the next storm so we had them cut into snags preemptively. (A snag is the trunk of a tree left for woodpeckers and cavity-nesting birds. They are cut to a height that they won't hit the road if they fall.)

 

And not to cause neighbor issues, but as a reminder,  if a tree falls, it's the responsibility of the damaged party to clean up the problem, unless  the homeowner has notified the tree owner of a concern, usually in writing. 

[Molly Brinkman]

Know any good local arborists? 

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[Cindy Decker]

You can use this link to search by ZIP. All these are certified and well-trained.   A few arborists who I've worked with are Russell Tree Care,  Jacob Sauer and Ahlum and Arbor.

https://www.ohiochapterisa.org/aws/OCISA/pt/sp/trees4ohio_find-an-arborist

I should note that any trained arborist should not trim an oak between March and about November because doing so would put the oak at risk of an insect that can kill it.   

Feel free to share my earlier email, too, with others outside the ravine. All areas of the city were hit hard by the wind.  If you share, please note that people with only a few trees (a typical yard) won't need annual visits. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/walhalla-ravine/CAHLfpgBt5%3DkeCkXOofn4F9eWNsOHaFsNj3tHRh2H1py5Saioxg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jason V. Advani]

Nathan Ames is awesome and lives in the area too. 

https://nextdoor.com/pages/ames-arboreal-group-columbus-oh/

On Sat, Mar 14, 2026 at 2:50 PM Molly Brinkman <bri...@gmail.com> wrote:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/walhalla-ravine/CAHLfpgBt5%3DkeCkXOofn4F9eWNsOHaFsNj3tHRh2H1py5Saioxg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Pari Sabety]

Enthusiastic vote here for Nathan Ames!!