Nick St. Sauveur from Cortese Tree Specialists in Knoxville, Tennessee, shares information about what tree cabling and bracing is and if your tree would benefit from it.
In this episode we cover:
To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.
You can learn more about cabling and bracing on our website at Tree Cabling and Bracing Service.
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
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Nick St. Sauveur from Cortese Tree Specialists in Knoxville, Tennessee, shares information about what tree cabling and bracing is and if your tree would benefit from it.
In this episode we cover:
To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.
You can learn more about cabling and bracing on our website at Tree Cabling and Bracing Service.
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company
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Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's Podcast Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each episode showcases one of Davey's certified arborists sharing advice with everyone about caring for your trees and landscapes. We'll talk about everything from introduced pests, seasonal tree care, deer damage, how to make your trees thrive, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees Podcast, we know trees are the answer.
This week, we're joined by Nick St. Sauveur. He's a district manager for the Davey Tree Expert Company in Knoxville, Tennessee and you're going to school me on everything related to tree cabling. Welcome to the show, tell me what tree cabling is, Nick.
Nick St. Sauveur: Thanks for having me, Doug, I really appreciate it. Basically, tree cabling it's exactly what it sounds like. We basically go into the top of the tree at a certain point, drill a hole through a tree, pull some cables through, and depending on how it's done, there's a couple of different ways that you could do it. Pull the cable through it, put these nuts on the end and it basically holds it together.
Doug: How big of a cable would we be talking about here? Is this a big heavy metal flexible cable that would go into a tree?
Nick: No, it's actually not as big as what a lot of people think it is, but if you're familiar with the guidewires that hold up telephone poles, it's basically the same thing, but it's rated for over 10,000 pounds.
Doug: Tell me a little bit about why I would do this because I'm thinking like a big tree, how am I going to save this branch? Is that what I'm thinking or?
Nick: Yes, generally, when we stick cables in the trees where it's all alternative to removing it because of some, like I said, major structural defect or the tree's already splitting. Then we pull it back together, stick some cables and braces it, try to reinforce those defects. Generally, like I said, we try to do it as a way of preserving a tree that one of our clients really like or want to keep long-term.
Doug: Yes, because I was thinking a big giant tree, I'll just lose it, but if you love a tree and you can save it by putting a cable in, that's got to be a good feeling when you get to a homeowner who loves this tree and you can tell them, "No, it doesn't have to go. We're going to be able to put this cable up in there."
Nick: Yes, one of our clients, they basically own the champion red Oak here in Knoxville. It was a huge, 78-inch diameter tree and about 20 years ago is my understanding that it started to split apart just like what we're talking about and we were able to expand the lifespan of that tree by 20, 30 years by coming in and installing cables. It had like 20, 30 cables in it, but the client got to keep it for that much longer. She only just recently removed it this year.
Doug: Well, one thing that was interesting that you said there, when I was thinking tree cabling, I'm only thinking branches, but this could be a big tree splitting up in the middle that you would bring back together, is that right?
Nick: Correct, yes.
Doug: I guess I just have to have you come to the property, but how do you make that decision on whether it should, "Listen, you're going to have to lose the tree or I can cable it."
Nick: Well, that's a great question, actually. A lot of it will depend on the risk tolerance of the client though too because even when you install a cable, you're not eliminating risk altogether, but you're reducing risk that's involved with that tree. It really depends on the client and what they want with that specific tree.
If you've got one tree on your property, it's your only tree, it's a huge tree, that would be a good candidate for cables, or if it's a heritage tree or champion tree or something like that. If it's a high-value tree, you'd be more inclined to put cables in it than if it's just some random huckleberry oak on the back 40.
Doug: How about size? What size of tree are you dealing with when you're cabling?
Nick: Generally, it's, again, a mature tree. You can't cable trees that are 10, 15-foot tall. Generally, if it's a smaller tree, we can come in to just prune out the defects instead of trying to reinforce them. Generally, it's a tree that's 20, 30 inches in diameter that we're coming in and being called to take care of that.
Doug: Once you do install those cables, how often do you go back and look at that tree to be sure that everything's doing what it's supposed to do, or do you have to go back?
Nick: Yes, we normally recommend once a year just do annual inspections on it, just make sure that cable's still in there, that it is being compartmentalized and that it is still attached. Depending on the hardware that you actually use for installing cables, sometimes it can come loose, something like that, but if it's installed properly and everything, you shouldn't really have any issues. It's in there for the life of the tree, but you should have those annual inspections just to make sure nothing's changed, nothing's broke.
Doug: Well, that leads me to my next question of if you do live on a property that has a lot of trees, is that what you advise to have an arborist come once a year, once every other year, or is it a case-by-case basis?
Nick: I advise all of my clients to come out every year and the reason for that is because there's so much that can change over the course of the year. If you have an arborist on your property every single year, you're going to be able to catch problems and stresses way before they become an actual issue. Unfortunately, people call us normally when the tree is almost dead or in a state of severe decline and then they want us to do something about it and it's a lot harder to get a tree to come out of a period of, or a state of high stress and get it to recover and stabilize it and then back to normal health than it is if we just catch it on the forefront of it.
Doug: Are there some trees that are more prone to being cabled or could it be any species just depending on how it's growing?
Nick: Genetically, there are trees that are more prone to having structural defects, Bradford pears, everybody knows about those.
Doug: Wait a minute, not everybody knows about them, but everybody in the tree industry does because of all the podcasts I've done with the Davey Tree Expert Company, the Bradford pear's probably come up two or three times. Let me hear it from an arborist's point of view, why should I not plant a Bradford pear?
Nick: There's just about every reason under the sky that you should not plant a Bradford pear. They're invasive, they're short-lived, structurally, they're just terrible because of the included bark, which is what you're trying to reinforce with cables. In my opinion, they stink when they're in bloom and there's just so many other good alternatives to Bradford pears even later ones.
Doug: Do you cable them?
Nick: Yes, we've got some clients that just love their Bradford pears and we'll still go out and we'll stick cables in them for them. Again, just to try to support those unions that have the included bark in it.
Doug: Well, I would love to be a fly on the wall when a client tells an arborist, "Oh, I've got to keep my beautiful Bradford pear."
[laughter]
Nick: Yes, we try to talk about it as much as possible, but you know. [laughs]
Doug: Any other trees that genetically grow in such a way that you think that that might be one you'd need to cable?
Nick: Yes, Maples are pretty bad about getting included bark as well. Elm trees, especially the American Elm, they tend to get a lot of included bark and split apart. Then one that we see a lot here in Knoxville is the Hackberry. Hackberries I tell a lot of my clients that they're like giant Bradford pears so they grow really quick and when they're young, you don't have any problems out of them, but once they start getting mature, they do tend to split apart. You don't even normally see it with a Hackberry because they don't actually have included bark. It's just a really weak wooded tree.
Doug: When you say that included bark, explain to me a little bit about what you're seeing in a tree, what that means.
Nick: If you've got two branches or two leads that are grown side by side and you've got a really narrow union between those two branches, what ends up happening is as each branch or a lead grows in diameter, the tissues between those two leads ends up getting compressed, it kills the tissue and then you've got no structural support there. Over time as those leads grow in height, eventually just ends up peeling part of that tree off.
Doug: Now, I asked the arborists many times just to tell me a little bit about how it feels because I can just see myself as a homeowner looking up at a tree and knowing something's wrong. By looking at it thinking, "Oh my gosh, I love this tree, but there's no way it's going to make it." When you come out and you tell them, "You know what I could do I could put this cable there and I could save that tree and I'm telling you at least another 10 years, maybe even longer than that." Tell me a little bit about that part of your job.
Nick: That's probably my favorite part of the job. It's everywhere, there's a lot of tree companies no matter where you're at. You're always going to have some tree companies that are going to try to use fear to sell a job or something like that. They're just not up to best management practices or affiliated with something like ISA.
They're not necessarily any more educated in tree care than what the homeowner would be. They see a big tree and they just want to remove it. It always feels great to be able to come out, see a big mature tree that the client's getting a second opinion on. They've been told it has to be cut down because of one reason or another. We could go in and be like, "No, there's nothing wrong with this." Then you get to save a tree that's 200 years old or something like that. It's an amazing feeling.
Doug: Nick, just talk about the importance of actually getting an ISA-certified arborist to come to the property and why it's important.
Nick: That's the biggest thing. That's one of the biggest ways we market ourselves is just trying to get out into the community and educate people on what proper tree care is. It seems like there is a big movement in our country and maybe even the world, I'm not really sure, of how or the value that we place on trees. It seems like a lot of people are becoming a lot more interested in actually taking care of their trees, so they're taking the time to educate themselves.
I've seen a lot of stuff just pop up in the city of Knoxville where the city's putting on what they call a volunteer forester program to try to educate people about trees and proper tree care, and that sort of thing. That way they know when somebody comes out to their property whether or not what they're feeding them is honest. They can make their own decisions themselves.
Doug: Just tell me a little bit about why this job's right for you. How did you get into trees?
Nick: I accidentally got into trees actually. All growing up, I wanted to do something in the medical industry. I got into college. Got into college and was going to become a nurse as pre-med. Always looked forward to going to work. At that time I was a landscaper on campus, or a groundskeeper on campus and always dreaded going to class. My second year, in I changed my degree to landscaping and gardening. After graduating, I tried to give or I did an internship with Cortese here in Knoxville and happily ever after.
Doug: What's the best part about what you do?
Nick: It's hard to say because I like a lot, just about everything in this industry. It's such a unique industry. I love climbing trees. Unfortunately, I just don't do that a whole lot anymore as the manager, but that's one of the things that I really, really enjoyed when I was in the field. Getting out climbing trees every day. I also love just talking with people on the sales side of it and being outside. It's physically demanding. It's mentally stimulating and all that. It's got a little bit for everybody I feel like.
Doug: Nick, let's leave it right there. That's great stuff. Thanks for all the information, especially schooling me on tree cabling, and let's just remind everybody no more Bradford pears.
Nick: Thanks so much for having me on, Doug.
Doug: Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Next week's show is all about weather whiplash, how do late winter temperature swings affect our trees? Remember, on the Talking Trees podcast, we know the trees are the answer.
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