Small Trees Become Big Problems℠
Due to the chance to finish a project this summer that I’ve been working towards for many years, I will not be scheduling any more work until November 2022.
If I have already talked with you about scheduling work or if I have you on my schedule, then that work will be completed by the end of June.
To my regular customers – I appreciate your patience and thank you for all the work you have given me in the past and I hope to be there for you again at the end of this year.
My schedule will be somewhat irregular to finish off this month due to upcoming training. I should be caught back up the first week of May.
(Photo) Builders planting trees in one area used steel rebar to stake in the new trees instead of wood stakes or no stakes. This created a dangerous situation for stump grinding a decade later when the wrong trees they planted have to be removed and the trees have started growing around the steel rebar.
I currently offer spraying of small trees for two common problems in the area – Fungicide spraying for Cherry Leaf Spot and Horticultural Oil spraying for Maple Gloomy Scale – both are offered timed for best effectiveness, usually late February through early April depending on the variety of tree and weather for the year.
Cherry Leaf Spot is a problem most people notice when they see that their ornamental Cherry trees have completely lost their foliage by mid-to-late summer. With a few fallen leaves on hand, the problem can be diagnosed before planning treatment. It’s critical that spraying alone is not used for Cherry Leaf Spot, but that all fallen leaves are removed from the site each year as the fungus overwinters on the leaf litter. The fungicide I use prevents infection – it doesn’t kill the fungus. So timing is critical, but long-term resistance issues are considerably reduced.
Maple Gloomy Scale is a problem most people notice when they see that their Maple isn’t putting out leaves like it used to or that the tree’s bark has turned nearly black from the normal gray. The scale can be smothered fairly effectively with a Horticultural Oil as the scales release the next generation in late winter or early spring. Maple trees do best in a cooler, moist environment while Gloomy Scale reproduces rapidly in the hot environments where Maples are commonly planted now – street side, next to driveways and sidewalks, and in parking lots. Supplemental watering and removal of hard surfaces goes a long way to controlling this problem.
I do not currently offer any additional chemical pest control services and do not plan to offer anything requiring the use of restricted-use (RU) chemicals or tree injections.
I recommend tree removal where there is (or will be) a poor match between the tree and the site it is growing on. What is a poor match? First, consider your land, all the structures on it, and what you desire from your land. Do you want a wooded lot? A large lawn? A vegetable garden? Are the trees you have part of enhancing or protecting those structures and implementing your vision for your land or will they interfere with it? If they interfere, you have a poor match. Do something now to take advantage of Just Small Trees, LLC services, not in 5 or 10 years when the problems are much more expensive to fix.
Remember, well-matched trees increase your enjoyment of your property and your property’s value, while poorly-matched trees do the opposite.
First Glance at Your Trees
Take a walk around your home and property. For trees near your house, look at each tree individually and consider the potential problems below. If you have a large number of trees elsewhere on your property, you can look at them in groups to save time.
Poor Site Problems
Poor Tree Problems
Removal vs Pruning
If you have a good tree species but the site match is just so-so, pruning is a good option. The most important thing with pruning is to start early in the tree’s life. It is impossible to turn a large, healthy, mature tree into a small, healthy, mature tree. Attempt to do so and you will get a tree that will decline and die over the next several years.
Pruning a good tree is worthwhile. For example, my parents have a large willow oak (Quercus phellos) about 20 feet from their house. At close to 70 feet tall and with a trunk diameter of 3 feet it requires pruning every several years to get branches off the house and roof. Regular pruning, starting years ago, is the only reason this beautiful specimen has been able to safely coexist with their house.
Overall, I don’t recommend pruning to make a tree stay smaller unless you are prepared to invest in yearly pruning of the tree for the entire life of the tree. An example would be an apple tree grown for fruit, a more extreme example a bonsai tree. If you don’t want to prune so often, remove the tree when it’s small and put something better in it’s place.
Need a tree for your yard? Looking for a tree selected and planted with care? I can help you.
I install customer provided trees and plants for the installation price only, though I provide no warranty on customer provided trees and plants.
Trees I provide are selected from area nurseries. I personally approve the trees after observing the roots, root flare, trunk, branch spacing, and overall health of the tree. Tree pricing depends on the tree variety and size. Please contact me to get a quote for a specific variety.
Please note: Once I’ve ordered your tree, there is up to a 25% cancellation fee (based on the tree price only) for cancellations. Once I’ve received your tree, there is no cancellation on the tree and it will be delivered to your property.
| Container Size | Installation Price, Basic | with Sod Removal |
| <1 gal | $7 | $12 |
| 1 gal | $12 | $20 |
| 3 gal | $30 | $40 |
| 5 gal | $40 | $60 |
| 7 gal | $60 | $80 |
| 10 gal | $80 | $100 |
| 15 gal | $100 | $120 |
| 20 gal | $125 | $150 |
| 25 gal | $150 | $180 |
| Japanese Maples & drainage sensitive in heavy clay*: +50% | ||
Tree for Tree – Replacing a tree in the same spot as a removed tree. This may require additional grinding, extensive digging, removal of old tree grindings, and replacement soil. Priced on a per job basis.
Clearing – Sod removal and disposal or extensive clearing of ground for plants beyond what is needed for planting itself.
Mulching – Mulching placed beyond what is needed for the planting itself.
Staking – Staking is not usually needed, but is available.
Soil Testing – Mass planting or high value trees may benefit from site soil testing.
Design Fee – Installation prices are based on customer generally knowing what plants and where. More extensive consulting and design work is available though I generally refer customers looking for complete garden designs.
1 year covering plant and labor to re-install. Limited to one replacement of equal or lesser value. Please contact me as soon as possible if you believe a plant is not doing well or you have questions about care.
Warranty Applies To – Plants purchased by Just Small Trees, LLC. Customer supplied plants are not warrantied. The full plant warranty is offered on a job-by-job basis and on container-grown plants only. Plants installed in difficult locations, on difficult to transplant species, or on plants that typically do poorly in central-NC conditions may receive a partial warranty or no warranty. You will receive warranty information in advance.
I do not install ball-and-burlap (field grown) trees. In most cases, it is easier to start with a container grown or bare-root tree and let the tree grow to the desired size. Ball-and-burlap trees can lose up to 95% of their roots during the digging & packaging process.
Warranty Covers – Plants that decline or die despite reasonable care. Trees that are blown over in high winds will be put upright within the warranty time frame at no charge.
Warranty Does Not Cover – Damage from acts of God or extreme weather conditions, theft, 3rd party damage, improper watering, improper pruning, neglect, abuse, or animal damage.
A customer had me out to remove a dead pine tree, broken & hung-up, that was in danger of collapsing onto his home. That worked completed, he had me back out a week later to buck up all of the fallen wood on his property.
Log bucking is simply cutting wood into shorter lengths that can later be split for firewood or used in outdoor fire pits. Generally the lengths are from 12 to 16 inches, depending. I don’t do splitting. I do stack, but the customer didn’t want that in this case.
Thanks to the more powerful equipment I use and the tools I have for handling timber I was able to cut up everything on his lot in 2.5 hours. In all I bucked Oak ranging from 6 to 12 inches in diameter, Pine from 4 to 16 inches, and large Tulip Poplar up to 22 inches that had fallen in a storm. When you have many fallen trees and a small chainsaw, it can save you many, many hours to use the log bucking service I offer.
I offer pruning for small trees, fruit trees, ornamental trees, and shrubs such as Roses, Privets, and Figs. You can find more details on my Services page. My goal is to prune to arboricultural standards while meeting your requirements as closely as possible. So I prune for the health of the tree, with proper cuts, and at the proper times. This means I don’t top Crapemyrtles or prune Azaleas in the fall.
Here is a ‘Red Delicious’ Apple Tree (Malus domestica) I pruned in March 2015. This was right before bud break with pictures just two weeks later as the buds began to break.
This tree is at least 35 years old and in fairly good condition with only one major defect in the trunk and strong leaf out each year. The tree hadn’t been pruned in a few years, so there was a lot of extra growth.
Why not prune more? The general rule of thumb is no more than 1/4 of the canopy in a year (1/3 for shrubs). Also, the tree is older and is in fairly good, but not great condition. Pruning doesn’t make a tree grow larger, but young trees can take a lot pruning because they don’t have a lot of mass to maintain. Very mature trees often have a precarious energy balance where pruning just a small portion of the canopy causes the tree to go into decline.
The tree produced few, if any, blooms in 2015. It was a heavy pruning and I knocked a lot of the buds off working in the tree to gain access for all the cuts. Had the pruning been done in January, perhaps the buds would have been in a firmer state. The tree produced great leaves, though, and in 2016 had a good crop of fruit.
Unfortunately, it’s the last of the three apple trees originally planted in the location and pollination is more difficult now. Here is an article on Apple Tree pollination.
For more information on pruning, see the Trees Are Good website.
Have a house built in the last 20 years? You’ll find that the builders in almost every case installed shrubs too close to your foundation. Now you’ve got 10 foot Hollies growing against your siding blocking airflow, 15 foot Viburnums blocking access to your watering hose, Loropetalums growing over your foot paths, and Euonymous that have lost their touch.
Make your landscape match your home by planting shrubs you actually want to look at, varieties that grow to the size you want, and by planting them 3 to 8 feet off of your foundation.
If you hire someone to cut them down to the base, you’ll still have stumps left. Landscape shrubs are bred to be tough and vigorous, so these stumps will grow back unless you apply herbicide and then they’ll still take years to decay.
Instead, hire Just Small Trees to remove your unwanted shrubs AND their stumps. I bring my qualifications (insured, certified, & licensed) plus a few more things that allow me to offer you excellent pricing on shrub removal:
It may take you two hours, a broken shovel or two, and some mild swearing to remove one 8 foot Privet. Hire me and I’ll get it out in 30 minutes and dispose of it so you don’t have a pile of yard waste sitting around with stumps that decay slowly and don’t burn well.
