Tristan: Most trees are quite hardy, especially the towering oak I climbed 40 feet into for this episode, as you’ll soon see. But if you’ve taken your trees for granted, you might want to consider giving them some TLC. A tree service company can help.
Joshua Tafflinger owns Simple Man’s Tree Service, a company highly rated by Angie’s List members in Indianapolis. I recently followed Tafflinger and his crew on a job, where they cleaned up limbs after violent storms and record flooding deluged parts of Central Indiana.
Tafflinger: We’re doing some touch-up maintenance trimming, taking out a major limb in a tree that has the potential to fall on a neighbor’s house in the winds and storms, and there’s a tree that was wind-damaged so we’re going to clean that up and cut some drainage cuts in it so it stays as healthy as it possibly can. And we’re clearing out and removing one tree for proximity in competition with other trees, in order to leave the remainders in good shape and have room to fill out, and we’re touching up a couple other trees, doing some aesthetics and clearing out some small ornamentals in front.
Tristan: Tafflinger says less is more when it comes to pruning: trees should be trimmed from the bottom on up, with extra care taken at the top. He told me the biggest problem he sees in tree care is topping: cutting the top off a tree causes smaller branches to grow, which quickly replace the main leader branch, making the tree unstable and potentially dangerous.
Tafflinger: We look at trees to prevent accidents from happening. Out in the woods, there’s no big problem: it falls, it’s fine. In the city, it falls, it breaks a car, breaks a person, breaks a dog, breaks a house, breaks a roof. We go in and look at it from prevention standpoints and also for longevity. Trees add a lot of value to the property. If you don’t keep them healthy, taking them down takes a decent amount of money. It’s more of a maintenance, and it’s about keeping tree life in balance with the city life.
Tristan: Tafflinger was able to meld a longtime hobby with his profession.
Tafflinger: I grew up on the East Coast climbing rock, climbing cliffs, which we don’t have out here in Indiana so much, so the next best thing to climb are trees. I’m a nature freak. Every day I get to work with nature, so it kind of balances out the city/forest vibe. It helps me to stay sane.
Tristan: Unlike many service providers, Tafflinger says the economic downturn has not negatively affected his business, though the recent surge of severe storms did help.
Tafflinger: I think it’s affected our business positively. I’ve seen a lot of people who were buying things who aren’t buying things anymore, and are focusing on what they have, meaning property. People are putting more money into landscaping, are taking care of their own stuff versus buying other properties, or more stuff. People seem to be investing in what they already have. And everyone in this town has trees, and we’ve been really busy this year.
The storms stimulated us to expand, to incorporate more crew members, and upgrade equipment a little bit larger to be able to handle situations like we had after the storms.
Tristan: Within a matter of hours, the four-man crew pruned some small trees, cut down a larger walnut tree that would’ve eventually been crowded out by its larger neighbors, and removed a fairly large branch broken during the wave of thunderstorms.
Simple Man’s Tree Service also cut a huge branch from a towering oak. I stepped into a climbing harness and ascended the tree to get a first-hand look at the precarious removal.
As lead technician for Simple Man’s, Chris Cummings enjoys the thrill of aerial chainsaw work. According to Cummings, we were about 40 or 45 feet in the air, though he said he often goes even higher.
Cummings: When we do a lot of deadwood, I set the rope all the way at the very top. I pretty much go everywhere, even out on branch tips. It’s actually quite interesting to see.
Tristan: It took Cummings and the ground crew of Chris Johnson and Conrad Greene about 45 minutes to remove the large limb.
After limbs are removed and trees are felled, they’re either put into a chipper to be eventually used for mulch, or cut so their wood can be used.
Simple Man’s Tree Service charges a base price of $125, and Tafflinger says the average job costs about $600 to have trees pruned or taken down.
You might think tree service companies spend most of their time chopping trees down like lumberjacks, but Tafflinger says the maintenance of a living tree is just as important, and that it benefits everyone.
Tafflinger: We all have to live together, people & trees. If we work to keep them in good order, there are no problems. And it’s the value thing again: property, aesthetic, environmental. Being around complete concrete will kill the spirit really quick. So it helps balance that out in city environments. And oxygen, too. We don’t breathe without them. (Laughs.)
Tristan: Tafflinger says it’s best to schedule tree service two to three weeks in advance, or even further: planning for a winter-time service is best because trees heal more quickly then. Simple Man’s is already booking for winter jobs, so you’ll want to find a good tree service contractor on Angie’s List and schedule an appointment for your green friends soon.
(interlude)
Are you a highly-rated service provider with an interesting job? Let us know by emailing us at podcast at angieslist.com, or by leaving a comment on our website.
Until next time, this is Tristan. Thanks for taking the time to list-en!
