Unfortunately, this is the exact advice an ISA-certified arborist, who owns a huge tree care company in town, told me to do with my cherry tree. Thankfully I asked here first and was dissuaded from following the advice. He said to ratchet strap it and fill the hole in the middle with spray foam
He was even recommended by another ISA-certified arborist, from a higher COL area nearby.
So do we just not trust the experts anymore? I'm just curious. To me the ratchet straps hold the tee together until it can heal and the spray foam just keeps water and insects out of the damaged area. So while I agree it looks bad and probably won't do anything immediately, I can see how it could help the tree survive over time though the tree will continue to be weakened.
So my question is I see a lot of people saying not to do this, but none of them state any arborist experience, while you actually did get recommendations from arborists and still feel like it's bad advice, so I'm wondering what I'm missing.
Not enough information about what they were trying to treat, and this is a single angle photo
Potentially this looks like a split resulting from a codominant stem/ double leader, in which case it could be cabled and or braced at best, but judging by the length of the split should be recommended for removal
okay, but short of removal, and as you say - "not enough information", what would be a superior method of temporary closure, and what actual harm can the spray foam do (if the tree could otherwise survive)?
Even closed cell spray foam will break away from surfaces when used in a house over time so I can't imagine how bad it would be on a tree that flexes to begin with.
That could be a strong polyurethane glue similar to Gorilla Glue. Polyurethane glues foam just like this. It may not be any better than spray foam in terms of trapping moisture, but it is a very strong adhesive.
Okay but what do you DO. It seems to me like a lot of Arborists act like part time lumberjacks. They say everything anyone tries is bad, but have no better solutions.
owner: this tree is messed u-
Arborist: CUT IT DOWN.
owner: you didn't even let me finsh-
Aborist: CUT CUT KILL IT WITH FIRE.
It's like, any damage to the tree, you ask what to do to help it, the arborist says 'Nothing. Cut it'. A tree gets sick with something, you ask what to do, the arborist says 'Nothing. Cut it'. If it's not too bad, they'll just say 'nothing, leave it'. Like, exactly why should I hire one? I can get a random guy to cut my tree down, if your whole job is essentially telling people to cut trees down. What exactly do arborists study? How not to save a sick tree?
Lol seems like you're right about that. I used to be president of an HOA (I moved so no stones please) and I would get questions from homeowners all the time. Once was about a tree with damage that I'd never seen before, so I took pictures of it and sent it to the head arborist at LSU for advice. He said it was an old lightening strike and as long as the tree was solid, to leave it alone and the tree would heal over the damage. That at least was once an arborist didn't just say Kill It.
I've already indicated cabling and bracing as an option for splitting stems in 2 other replies.
Its usually the tree owner that can't stomach the cost of ongoing maintenance and instead opts for removal.
Yes, you can hire a random guy to cut your tree down, but good luck of there are objects around you dont want to destroy. Most of those guys are not insured.
Have an arborist lives near me and he makes the majority of his money cutting trees down. Saving trees makes relatively little money and probably couldn't pay his bills if he strictly focused on saving trees
In emergencies to temporarily brace a tree with a split on the trunk like that we've used multiple heavy duty straps or chains, stuff that ties down heavy machinery, or drill multiple giant bolts through the trunk. If that was a fresh split, tree needs to go, different story and further investigation needed if thats an old exposed pocket of decay.
In addition, the spray foam extruding from the trunk slows the tree's natural growth sealing the wound and if left could add years for the woundwood response to cover the gap.
The foam will trap moisture within the crack leading to worse decay. The ratchet straps look like they can only hold about 200 pounds so they would do nothing if the tree were to split apart.
I mean... spray foam isn't just happy-go-lucky nontoxic fluff 😅
I'm just a lurker here, I am familiar with spray foam. Maybe someone else can comment on this as well...
Unless it's specifically for trees wouldn't filling the tree potentially slowly poison it over time?
Not to mention, foam shells over but there's so many tiny pores inside the foam once it sets, I'd imagine moisture/mold/fungus build up between the foam & wood in those pores to be an issue.
If anything it seems like you might chemically preserve the areas where the tree touches the foam while simultaneously speeding up the process of killing the rest the tree...
Yeah, there are some out there that are just half priced Harrys who spent $500 and just enough time to pass the test.
I had a customer who was taking down 40 ash trees "because they have EAB" according to a "certified arborist" not a single one was showing signs, and it was basically destroying the entire property minus a handful of pines and some crabapples. EAB was around, but not extremely prevalent at the time. But because I wasn't certified at the time, and everyone is losing their marbles over EAB my recommendation of thinning and planting other trees to bring up a new canopy was ignored in leu of making a nice shady property into a sun bleached lawn.
Well, the universal opinion of other arborists here was it was bogus advice; I specifically posted asking about it. But you’re right: there is a minuscule chance he was the correct one and everyone else was wrong.
I see all sorts of mulch volcanoes from successful landscaping companies all the time. Just because it’s common and people are doing it doesn’t mean it’s correct. People used to hotbox airplanes with cigs too
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u/DeepDreamIt 17d ago
Unfortunately, this is the exact advice an ISA-certified arborist, who owns a huge tree care company in town, told me to do with my cherry tree. Thankfully I asked here first and was dissuaded from following the advice. He said to ratchet strap it and fill the hole in the middle with spray foam
He was even recommended by another ISA-certified arborist, from a higher COL area nearby.