March 23, 2018
Having some trouble with trees?
Trees cause millions of dollars worth of damage every year. They can also get in the way of building and landscaping projects. But trees contribute so much to the natural beauty and the health of our environment that destroying them is often hard to come to grips with.
If you’re having tree troubles, professional tree relocation services could help. Let’s take a look at 5 situations that call for tree location, and why hiring a professional is the answer.
What is Tree Relocation?
There’s a lot more to tree relocation than repotting a large plant. It’s a delicate operation requiring knowledge, finesse, and some heavy-duty equipment.
The basic principle is the same as any plant. We need to lift the tree out of the ground with its core root structure intact. Then we relocate to a suitable site elsewhere. However, a tree’s roots can extend for many meters below the surface.
It may also stun you to know that plants can go into shock, just like people. A tree relocated to a new environment may suffer extreme distress and even death. That’s why it’s vital to use a team sensitive to the tree’s needs.
Professional tree relocation involves inspecting the tree, its root system, and the surrounding land. Once the team has undertaken a survey, they can bring in the required equipment and transport the tree – across the country, if required.
Without these steps, relocating a tree is likely to kill it through shock, or even cause risk to human life through poor techniques and lack of equipment.
Reasons for Relocation
While trees and humans coexist well, there are plenty of situations where a tree’s position can interfere with human activities. Often, these issues won’t become obvious until a tree has grown to its full size.
But destroying a tree is a terrible waste. Trees take many decades to grow. On top of that, our human concerns are often quite fleeting by comparison. That’s why it’s often so rewarding to move the offending tree instead.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common relocation situations below.
Extending Property
The needs of the modern world often come into conflict with nature. Expanding your property could be an obvious move for you, but it’s bad news to any trees in your way.
Sometimes it’s possible to build around trees. But this is often an expensive option, and can even pose risks to your building project later on. It’s also difficult to assess from the surface how far a tree’s roots stretch.
Relocating a tree on your property allows you to keep it for its environmental or aesthetic appeal while also letting you carry out your plans for your land.
With small tree relocation, developers can move a tree off-site, or to a more suitable location on the property away from new building projects.
Landscaping
Humans can achieve some beautiful things when they work together with the natural world. A landscaping effort can really bring out the best of nature’s beauty.
But landscaping often demands some significant changes. Trees represent one of the biggest challenges. They’re large enough that you’ll struggle to disguise their impact on the landscape, and they may stand in the way of your designs.
Relocating a tree can preserve it while also incorporating it into your new landscaping effort. Trees often make an impressive statement in landscaping, whether it’s as a centrepiece or as the start of a tree-lined avenue.
Encroachment Issues
As any urban planner will tell you, trees have a knack for ending up where they shouldn’t. Despite being literally rooted to the ground, trees can damage sidewalks, walls, and roofs throughout their lifespan.
If you have trees encroaching on your property, it could cause huge issues down the line. Although they grow slowly, trees have enormous amounts of power, and they’ll win in a fight with most surfaces. Many older buildings suffer when young saplings turn into enormous neighbours.
Even on the less dramatic side, leaf litter and fallen branches can make life a misery for property owners. Maintenance costs for a troublesome tree can climb quickly.
Relocating a small tree can resolve these concerns. We shouldn’t destroy a tree for causing a few issues. The relocation allows you to preserve smaller trees while moving it to a more suitable place on the property – or elsewhere.
Safety Concerns
Trees can represent a surprising danger to human life. In storm conditions, fallen trees and branches are one of the biggest killers, and remain a risk until they’re removed.
Most of us deal with trees in the form of twigs and branches. We forget the power of a falling tree, but it’s a simple matter of physics. Combine a tree’s enormous mass with its high elevation, and you’re looking at a lot of potential energy. That potential energy converts into kinetic energy when a tree falls.
Strong winds or a lightning strike can easily bring down even large trees. For trees near a property, this can be a big cause for concern.
Fallen trees can crush cars, buildings, and people. If you have safety concerns about trees near buildings or public walkways, it may be time for full-on tree removal.
Preservation Issues
Sometimes, tree relocation comes from a sense of fair play with nature. Many older trees have a history spanning generations of human lifetimes. They’re not easily replaced when they’re destroyed.
Basic respect for nature would suggest we try to preserve these trees where we can.
Relocating a tree can allow it to thrive in more ideal conditions. This is particularly important if its original site has become less suitable over time – often for one of the above reasons.
Relocating trees is also an important aspect of cultivating new woodland. Small, young-growth trees can fail to grow into mighty specimens if other trees crowd out their habitat.
Dealing with Tree Relocation Situations
It’s clear there’s a whole host of situations that might require tree relocation or even tree removal. To get it done with minimal risk to individuals and to the tree, you need professionals who know what they’re doing.
Ready to relocate? Contact us to find out more about our services and the types and sizes of trees we can relocate.
