Tree Life Investigator: Vol. Two -Tree Snatchers

May 9, 2025

My duties as a tree consultant include being hyper-aware of how trees respond to human activity around the county, in general. For example, it's important that I notice if a particular species is exhibiting symptoms of a widespread problem, such as insect infestation or foliar disease. Or as another example, it might be equally important for me to understand how different collection of tree populations are affected by certain pruning methods. Insight that I might glean from potentially any property could be shared with a client or implemented on a project. Therefore, I am always looking at trees closely wherever I go. It's a TreeLife for me.


Because I'm on the road much of many days, I use this as an opportunity to look at trees while traveling routine routes. Truly, I get to know all the varieties of trees along the I-15 and 78 freeway, and even keep an eye out for tree hazards along the CalTrans right-of-way.


There are a many remnant Eucalypti that peak my curiosity. Though they are generally not planted these days, they will always be an emblematic and stately tree, for me. Long ago, they were selected for their hardiness and planned usefulness, but times have changed and now they're neglected and even despised. Then one day, I noticed that a particular type of Eucalypti had been pruned in locations that I knew had no tree budget, and thus, no tree maintenance monies to use for pruning.



I was puzzled by signs that random silver dollar gums (Eucalyptus polyanthemos) had been stripped of foliage while nearby red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) were untouched, with branches still overhanging the roadway. Even if there was a budget, I thought to myself, why did tree crews prune the wrong trees?

Using my arbor-investigator skills, I considered dozens of scenarios that would satisfy this mystery. This thought process went through my mental computer for weeks, yet I was stumped every time.



Then the answer presented itself over the course of a month. Heading eastbound on the 78 I saw a nondescript, middle-aged man wearing everyday clothes and carrying a mass of Eucalyptus branch clippings on his back. He was walking up the embankment along the side of the freeway, heading to the offramp intersection. He was not with a tree company because there were no cones or identifiable trucks in sight. And based on his appearance and attire, he was not employed.

On another occasion a couple weeks later, I was stopped at a light on El Norte Parkway, just west of the I-15, waiting for it to turn green. Up on the embankment of the offramp to my left, behind almost shoulder-high acacia bushes, was a young woman moving around in the space between the bushes and barricade. I looked closer and noticed that she was wearing a tank top, and had her hair tied up in a bun. She was pretty and well-kept, and clearly not homeless. Just as my light turned green I saw her grabbing at bunch of branch clippings laying on top of the acacia bushes. She had a pile neatly stacked and was finishing cleaning up.



And then the theory popped into my mind. Maybe it was the flower shops around the county, wittingly or unwittingly, hiring unpaid and unskilled workers to collect material for their arrangements. You, the inquiring reader, may not know this, but most floral arrangements contain Eucalyptus clippings to add texture and content.

Eucalyptus clippings would be something that they would ordinarily have to buy from specialized growers, from farms that I've seen in the eastern portions of the county. Yes, there are small collectives in rural areas that specifically grow silver dollar Eucalyptus for the floral-arrangement industry. Generally, these farms regularly harvest the clippings from the roots and stumps before the foliage gets too woody, using techniques that I'm not entirely knowledgeable of.



Guerrilla pruning trees may not seem like a big deal, or it may seem like an innocent thing, but I knew it to be negligent and illegal across the board. The people harvesting this material are doing it without safety or arboricultural considerations. It's dangerous for the climber and the passerby, and harmful to trees.

Next time you buy flowers, ask the shop attendant where they sourced their eucalyptus clippings from. If you see someone pruning eucalyptus trees in a public right away, along a highway or freeway, or in a public park, and without cones, company clothes, or safety gear, please contact the local agency and complain. Please report this kind of activity to the appropriate agency, depending on the location. If it's along or freeway, try calling CalTrans or the highway patrol. If it's in a park, please call the public works department for that city.



Untrained people are pruning trees along roads without being hired by the tree owners. They are probably doing it to collect material needed for floral arrangements. Don't buy flowers from people standing at the side of the road. Question your local flower shop. Help protect trees.

It won't be long before we hear about someone falling from a tree because they weren't using professional climbing techniques, or some sort of traffic accident where some innocent bystander is injured or even killed. This is what I worry about the most...



I am writing this article to create awareness around the county. It was not paid for by the eucalyptus growers of the county. It was written for street credibility, for I represent the greatest profession known humankind, your friendly neighborhood tree consultancy.

TreeLife Investigators: Vol. 1 – Tree Root Traffic Jam

April 11, 2025
There are many forms of investigation in the professional world. Everyone has seen movies with crime scene investigations or read stories derived from investigative journalism. Many people know firsthand about the investigation that occurs when a doctor evaluates a patient. More recently, there are the computer technicians who investigate computer problems. But most people don’t know about the investigation that occurs daily in the little-known world of arboriculture. This story is about a TreeLife Investigator who was recently called out to a 'tree crime' scene. Most people would be surprised to learn that tree investigations occur regularly in many communities across the country. This story begins with a population of bottle trees (Brachychiton populneus), planted in a homeowner association parkway ten years ago, that were showing varying degrees of health decline. The management company representing the community’s board of directors wanted to know what was wrong with the trees, and they contacted TreeLife to solve the problem. An Investigator with TreeLife assessed the population of trees shortly thereafter and observed signs of secondary disorders in most of the trees. Many tree crowns appeared opaque, while others looked sparsely foliated. Leaf size was stunted on some specimens, and leaf tips were distorted and necrotic in others. The Investigator noted that all of the bottle trees had three or four “breather tubes” (aka “root aeration tubes”) placed within one foot of each trunk. The tubes were arranged in a non-uniform, non-symmetric pattern. Often sold as beneficials, “breather tubes” were known to be ineffective and generally harmful. They don’t improve soil aeration or water distribution as advertised, instead they usually lead to root and trunk damage. The TreeLife Investigator talked with a landscape maintenance account manager, familiar with the community, about the performance history of the trees. Purportedly their crowns would recover from the aforementioned secondary disorders each year only to decline or defoliate again.

Pest Notes, Vol. 1 – Pests are Secondary

February 14, 2025
Do insects and pathogens wake up in the morning, get their coffee and ponder on a balcony: “What do I feel like eating today?!” No. Quite the contrary. Trees and plants alike attract insects and disease when they are stressed in some form or fashion. Insects are electromagnetic in many ways, and pick up on vibrations present in odorants exuded by plants and other things in the environment. Disease only proliferates when conditions permit. In fact, pathogens can lay dormant in soil or debris, and are “activated” when stress provides an opportunity. Excluding invasive species, insects and pathogens are largely opportunistic, meaning they attack plants and trees that are providing an “opportunity” for them to host. Without some stress factor causing insect-attracting odorants to exude, opportunistic pests are generally uninterested in healthy trees. Moreover, pests do not “choose” their host; it is an electromagnetic phenomenon or symbiotic relationship between plant and pest. Plants and trees have been dealing with pests like fungi, bacteria and insects for millennia; and they have developed relationships of mutual sustenance, sometimes to the detriment of one or the other. Factors that TreeLife CA representatives consider when surveying any given set of trees are:
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