2017 Ashwaubenon Street Tree Pruning Contract

As of Monday, January 30th 2017, the crews have finished pruning 183 village-owned street trees. Go ahead, applaud. I’ll wait.

This is the second pruning project we have been a part of for the Village of Ashwaubenon. The first project was completed in June of 2016. The pruning of village-owned trees is just as important as pruning privately owned trees (if not more so).. Have you ever witnessed a tree branch taking a ride on top of a garbage truck? This is one of the main reasons why we prune these street trees. Although the garbage truck did effectively “prune” the limb off the tree, this is not ideal for the tree or the truck. Street trees need to be pruned properly to provide clearance for larger vehicles on the street side and to provide ample head room on the residential side. While our arborists are up in the trees, they take a little extra time to remove any larger deadwood as well as any branches that may be crossing or rubbing on one another. This is better for the overall health of the tree, and also allows the arborist to move around the entire canopy. This also lets the arborist see any parts of the tree that are (or could become) threats for any people on the street, sidewalk, or lawn areas below.

Along with the obvious vehicles driving down the city streets, our crews had to work around many obstacles. Some of the things we encountered on a daily basis were: mailboxes, our own chipper and truck, street lights, and signs. All of these things need to have ample clearance so they can be most useful to village residents. One of the largest obstacles of this year’s project was quite simply: weather. With the April showers in January, we did lose a lot of snow, but rain can turn a lichen-covered Norway Maple or Green Ash into a very slippery situation. It’s for this reason that we had to completely cancel pruning the street trees for four of the eleven total days we had originally scheduled to complete the job.

With all the weather-related setbacks, it seemed that completing the project would be a little tougher than we imagined. However, the crew seemed to look at the time-crunch as a sort of challenge and, with a little extra work and a couple of late days, we made up the extra four days without trouble. Looking back on the project and all that we’ve accomplished, it’s hard to ignore everything that was done to keep us on track despite the challenges and setbacks we encountered. I’d like to thank every one of the crew members that had a hand in getting the project completed to Selner Tree & Shrub Care LLC.’s standards. Thank you Casey, Matt, Phil, Aree, and Skye for putting in the extra effort to make sure everything was completed on time in a professional manner regardless of what the weather had in store for us.

All the trees for Part 1 of the contract are now completed and won’t need much attention for the next 8-10 years or so. Yup, you read that correctly. I wrote “Part 1.” Which might make you wonder, “Does this mean there is a Part 2?” That’s exactly what it means. For the second part of the pruning contract, we have 299 trees to prune, inspect, and clean up for the Village of Ashwaubenon. If you happen to see our crews out working on the street trees in 2017, feel free to wave and say “Hi!”

~Jonathan Bantle