My service to you as a Consulting Arborist

What you receive from me when you hire me as your a Consulting Arborist?
  
A site visit that involves discussions with you. I then generate a report of recommendations to help you decide on the best management practices for your landscape:

• Landscape Maintenance: insect and disease problems with your landscape (i.e. integrated pest management); tree/shrub planting ideas and methods; tree maintenance suggestions and recommendations (pruning, removals, spraying, planting, watering, and overall care of your trees and shrubs to keep them healthy).
• Landscape Design Recommendations: xeriscape ideas and methods (i.e. how to incorporate hardscape with the proper plants for your site); planting the proper species and "how to" to maintain a healthy landscape.
• Overall discussion that steers you in the right direction that ultimately gives you the best bang for your buck.

Expert Witness Credentials:
   This is a service for court and legal needs. I offer 30+ years of expertise in the area of urban forestry,      traditional forestry, natural resource issues, and general landscape maintenance issues.

Landscape Damage Appraisals:
   When you have trees/shrubs or any other landscape that has been damaged (i.e. from a car accident), I come to the site and perform and assessment of the damage. I prepare a report that can be used for insurance or court purposes for the proper remuneration to recover losses incurred.

Utility Vegetation Expertise:
* Line Clearance and right-of-way maintenance
* All utility and vegetation management issues

What is Maah Daah Hey?

Maah Daah Hey is a phrase from the Mandan Indians meaning "an area that has been or will be around for a long time."
The Maah Daah Hey Trail is a 96 mile (154 km) trail that connects the northern and southern portions of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and winds through the Little Missouri National Grasslands in North Dakota's Badlands to form the longest continuous singletrack mountain biking trail in America (source: Wikipedia).
While visiting this beautiful part of North Dakota last summer (yes, North Dakota does have some gorgeous, neat country to explore), I and a good friend biked a section of the Maah Daah Hey trail.
What a great country we have to explore...

What I think about the health of our forests...

People ask me from time to time what I think about the "beetles" ravaging our forests. They comment on how horrible it looks. Many of us have been warning about this for up to 20 years. My not so humble opinion, is that if we would have (and I didn't just start thinking or saying this) spent as much $ over the last 20-30 years "managing" our lands and forests, as fighting fires, we would not see our forests in these conditions. We always have been real good at "reacting" to events when they occur instead of planning properly. All too often our natural resources are taken for granted. Professional management of especially our forests is absolutely necessary today. As we have disrupted the natural fire regime across our country, the forests have suffered. Damaging insect activity especially, is the result of lack of fires that naturally "clean" and reinvigorate our forests.
In addition, people ask me "why can't we just go out and cut the trees down and why aren't the dead trees of some value"? Unfortunately, the market for the type of trees we have in Colorado is very poor at best. As I work with landowners, I do my best to connect them with local or regional processors that "may" have a need for the wood. Even firewood is hard to sell from the dead trees. Another big reason for the markets being so poor is the cost to get the logs out. The fuel, distance to a mill, access to the site, and overall demands are sketchy.
Management of our resources and being a good steward of the land is a concept that's not new, just an attitude.
Check out these references: FOR THE HEALTH OF THE LAND, by Aldo Leopold; TREE TALK, by Ray Raphael; WILDWOOD, by Ruth Loomis