How to Prepare for your Arborist Visit

Some people wonder what they should do before their arborist team arrives. It may not be every day that you have an educated tree guy or gal show up, so here’s a few small things that your arborist will truly appreciate having done before they arrive.

1. Pet droppings: Please pick up your pet’s droppings. Sometimes, with a wave of our magical chainsaws, we can have the brush go straight from the tree to the chipper without touching the ground, but most of the time, someone is walking through your yard. It not only gets on our boots, but our hands too! When we climb, our hands typically end up where our feet were. Now, don’t feel bad if your cutie-pie puppy planted a land mine for us just as you leave for work, we understand, most of us have fluff balls of fun at home, too. So thank you for helping us keep our boots, hands, and lunches free of digested dog food.

2. Items sitting underneath the tree: Please remove any items in the area around the tree. Birdbaths, garden gnomes, and solar lights love to hide in places we can’t see. Now, avoiding the lawn chair isn’t going to cause us to drop a limb in your kitchen, but it does make our day easier. Not having to move things out of the way before beautifying or dismantling your tree helps us get to our fluffy fur balls and rug rats sooner. Moving kid’s toys is also extremely helpful to our climbers. Some of the grounds crew can get…um…distracted with toys laying around. Please don’t hurt yourself trying to move the heavy 100% steel patio set by yourself because the heavy lifter in the house decided that the Packer game was more important than your back (even though it may or may not be). We get paid to move trees from your yard to our truck, but we can move a thing or two to keep you happy and healthy.

3. Open gates and clear pathways: Please open the gates to your yard prior to your arborists arriving. We like climbing things made of wood like jungle gyms and trees, but fences are kinda low on the list. Also, if you happen to have your great grandma’s precious hasta that you don’t want damaged, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to pop it out of the ground and put it in a pot for the day; especially if it could be in a drag path. We do our best to keep your plants and yard in good shape. Sometimes, the brush isn’t very compliant in leaving your yard and may put up a fight worse than a kid told “No” in a candy store. If you have any special concerns with anything on your property, please let us or our sales representatives know.

4. Plan one company at a time: I like to think we are friendly people and don’t bite too hard, but tree work is hazardous and takes up a lot of space. The less people we have walking around, the better. So if the lawn cutter guy and the landscapers could show up before or after our team, I am sure we would all be okay with it. Now, back to the digested doggy food topic. Pesticides, just like dog waste, gets everywhere. We all like being healthy and not having herbicide in our lunches, so please eradicate the weeds after we leave. Don’t worry, we won’t judge, your lawn is almost guaranteed to look better than the lawn at my house.

5. Let us know about any concerns or hidden objects in your yard: We don’t like breaking your stuff. We really don’t. It involves paperwork and informing the weird boss guy. So if you have any hidden sprinkler systems, jars of money, or explosives just under your turf, please let us know. Also, if you have any other concerns or questions, feel free to talk to us: we get paid by the hour. Just get our attention from a safe distance if we are working. We like keeping our customers and their things intact.

Thanks for reading this, or at least pretending to read it.

-Phil, the childish arborist who gets yelled at for playing with kid’s toys.