TREE BRACING AND CABLING SERVICES

Stabilizing your trees properly is very important to the life of your tree. Legacy Tree Company have extensive knowledge of the best Tree Bracing and Cabling practices.

Examining tree branching structure, limb taper, and the quality of branch attachments is essential to good pruning. A good arborist needs to be literate in what characterizes healthy and strong trees. They need to also have a good respect for the consequences of misjudging or mis-characterizing a tree and situation. When large, or relatively mature trees are compromised one approach to managing the risk of failure is a non-invasive approach we like to take utilizing the Cobra Dynamic Bracing system.

Unlike other types of cabling and bracing systems- this system is entirely external to the stems and trunks of the tree: it is essentially an industrial strength woven polypropylene that- threaded with a rubber shock absorber- wraps innocuously around the mature stems of your tree. This creates a canopy-wide support that limits movement. It also reduces the likelihood of failure and stifles the potential damage below if a tree or stem within the tree does fail. Whereas other systems penetrate into the interior of the trunk- creating a vector for decay- our system is as we say, non-invasive. Slack is also built into the system to provide for the increase in growth of the girth of individual stems.

To cable or not to cable? There are drawbacks to installing a foreign, abiotic structure in your tree. Here they are: Your tree is going to keep growing. In many cases, where there is a major defect or inclusion present, that situation will persist and worsen. Large trees are going to get larger. If you do not water, the tree will weaken for lack of increase in the volume of living tissue. If you do water the weight and length of levers will increase. This will increase leverage on points of concern. Cabled trees need to also be routinely examined to insure their structural integrity. Finally, the tree in a sense, becomes dependent on that cable. Its subsequent growth takes into account the force the cable exhibits on the tree and it can never be removed. Sometimes, in short, it is better to just go ahead and remove the tree. We can help you draw a meaningful and actionable conclusion by assessing the risk and reward of a particular situation.

Our arborists are trained not just in mitigating risks posed by suboptimal structure in mature trees. We are also capable of “nipping the problem in the bud”. In seeing a young tree (or any tree for that matter), a tree worker needs to anticipate its growth and tendency in the coming ten or even twenty years. We can set up young saplings for success. We routinely train our clientele with manageable steps to take in seeing that they get the most from our annual or multiennial service cycles. Working with Legacy Tree means customer education to the extent you are inclined.