Saving trees in the urban environment is a worthy goal. Cabling can stabilize co-dominant stemmed trees or forked trees, preventing severe damage. We explore both the dynamic system, and the static method.
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– We love our trees, just like this one that’s almost 200 years old. But every now and then, we get a little scared of them. We’re afraid as they’re lurking over our houses that a branch might fall or they might fall on our car or some of our neighbor’s property even.
But we have a lot of interesting choices and options to deal with our trees short of cutting them down. I’m here with Dean Glascock, certified arborist and owner of Arbor Art Tree Service to talk about tree cabling. So Dean, what is the deal with tree cabling?
– Well, tree cabling is an alternative to spending lots of money on removing a tree that may not be ready to be removed. Certainly important these days, in the urban environment anyhow, to preserve every tree we can for all the usual benefits of clean air and ecology.
Today, we’re gonna talk about two different styles. We’re not using any old-school type systems today, we’re just gonna tell you about the most modern techniques, which we only use now. There’ll be a dynamic system which allows movement, and the other static system that does not allow movement
For more critical trees that are in less health, if you will. – [Host] Now, there are a couple of different situations I understand that you might wanna do this. Trees that look like they’re sort of grown together have all kinds of trunks coming out, look like they might be aging.
Tell me a little more formally about what those are, what they’re called. – [Dean] Well, trees with forks, if you will. They could be two to three to four different main leaders. These are called co-dominant stems. And what happens normally with co-dominant stems, a lot of times you’re gonna have what is
A weakly attached wood, what they call “included bark.” Okay, this is what we call included bark. This is weakly attached wood at the bottom of a fork, or crotch, if you will, of a tree. And this is what we are protecting. This is what we don’t want to move.
In the right wind scenario, this could split apart and cause damage to what we call targets below. When that situation arises, if you like your tree, if it’s healthy, but yet it’s getting large enough and tall enough that when it sways in the wind,
It looks like it may have a little trouble staying together, that’s when you call someone like us that’s certified in this that knows how to do it right. And we can come out and give you an assessment and tell you if you need a dynamic system that allows
The tree to still move, but yet, won’t allow it to come apart, or use a static system that will hold it together. So you’re looking for the forked trees to use this most of the time. – [Host] Now the first tree that you’re gonna work on today is this wonderful hackberry tree
That has the co-dominant leaders coming out of it. What are you going to do with that? And what are the pieces that you use? – [Dean] Well, we’re gonna use a static system in this tree just because of the type of tree it is.
It’s more of a weak wood. It’s a faster growing tree. Any tree that grows fast has weaker wood, and the hackberry, we have plenty of those in Tennessee here, that’s for sure. This tree’s getting up in age, it’s got three forks to it. And we’re gonna put a triangle system in this tree,
Static system, to allow it to live a little longer and stay together. So what we’ll be using is this high-strength quarter inch steel cable, which is about 4,200 pounds of tensile strength. This is not going to break. It would take quite a bit to break this.
I’ve seen these trees fail that we’ve used them in and the trees literally are hanging off of each other. They’re not hitting the ground because of the cables that hold them. Now this is a wire stop system that– it’s called Rigguy, and it’s aluminum. There used to be, you had to carry tools,
A whole bag of tools and a lot of weight up a tree in the old days to do lags and systems of that sort. Now we use just three pieces. That’s it. We go up the tree, we pull the crown together with a come along, put tension on it to bring it together.
We do two holes that we drill. It’s the only invasive part about it, is you drill all the way through each side of the branch, put this through, bend it out, put your wire stops on the end, you’re ready to go. We’re literally gonna choke the top of the crown
With a rope and bring it in. And then we’ll drill the holes and we’ll set the cables and then do the wire stops. Then we’ll let it loose, the tree will come back out, and it’ll be held right there for good. – [Host] And you’re using the other system
On the elm in the backyard. – [Dean] Right, we decided, normally elm trees don’t need any type of mitigation, but in this scenario, we had one that was rubbing against a hackberry tree for years and years, and there came up a weak spot in this lateral limb. The customer really liked the tree,
Didn’t wanna lose that part. You don’t wanna make too big of a cut on a tree ’cause they never heal. So, I suggested that we cable it, do some mitigation to give the crown some strength. We’re gonna do a little weight reduction on that limb,
But at the same time, we’ve got the static system in place and today we’re gonna place a Cobra dynamic system underneath it as sort of a tagline in case the knuckle does break. So it’s a preservation use today and it’s a good thing. – [Host] And what are the parts and pieces
Of that dynamic system that are going to make it move and allow it to move with the tree? – This, opposed to the static steel, is this nylon-type braided material that is UV resistant. They say last up to 20 to 40 years even. I’m not sure if they last that long,
But it’s a great system. It’s called Cobra. And it’s basically this spliced into itself. This is your shock absorber, this large piece of rubber here, and it allows– you can pull to a point. So it’s gonna allow the tree to move and have some dynamics. And it’s important that trees have dynamics
For reaction wood, and reaction wood is what the tree grows as it moves in order to strengthen it in any weak position it might’ve been blown to. So, it’s really an interesting product and it’s been great for us so far. So we really highly recommend Cobra systems whenever we can put them in.
– Well, when you go out and look at people’s trees and they’re mainly worried about, “It’s gonna fall on the house, it’s gonna fall on the neighbor’s house,” what are the kind of questions that you’re going to ask them or they should expect to hear from a certified arborist
About the choices they might make with that tree? – I guess the first thing I always wanna know from a client, especially new clients, is how much do you like the tree? Tell me how important it is to you. This day and age, with the economy the way it is,
Money’s tight for a lot of folks, and you want to hang onto a tree that maybe your great grandpa planted or something, certainly it’s worth trying to preserve. I’ll tell people right up front, and an arborist should tell you up front, the value involved in what you’re doing for a tree.
You know, it may not be worth to spend 6 or $700 to do a little maintenance on a tree that you know is on a steep decline, that’s gonna have to be removed eventually within the next year or two. So it’s not smart cost, you know,
It’s not smart to spend that kind of money. – So now we’ve talked to the arborist, we’ve made a decision, we have the cabling installed. What kind of maintenance should we expect to have to do in the next few years? – Yes, every year, you should, by ANSI standards,
You should have your cables checked every year. – [Host] Well, so trees are such an important part of our property and our lives. Make sure and take care of them well. Talk with a certified arborist and find out all of your options about how to preserve your little part of our urban forest. Well, thank you so much for watching, and if you liked this video, you’re gonna love everything else that we have in our archives and running currently. Go to our channel, click subscribe, and continue watching. See you next time.