Before Hurricane Season: The Tree Checklist That Matters

We respond to a great many storm calls across Volusia and north Brevard, and the honest observation is that most of the trees that failed had visible defects beforehand.

Walk your property and look for these

At the base:

• Mushrooms or conks growing on the trunk or at the root flare. Fungal fruiting bodies indicate internal decay and they are the single most important thing on this list.
• Soil heaving or cracking on one side of the trunk.
• A visible cavity or hollow.
• Exposed, severed or damaged roots — especially where paving or trenching has happened.
• Carpenter ant activity, which frequently indicates existing decay.

On the trunk:

• Vertical cracks or seams.
• Bark falling away in areas.
• Bulges or depressions suggesting internal decay.
• Old wound sites with poor closure.

In the crown:

• Dead limbs, particularly large ones over structures.
• Codominant stems with included bark.
• Branches that have partially failed and are hanging.
• Crown dieback starting at the tips.
• Asymmetric or one-sided crowns, which load unevenly in wind.

What to have done before the season

1. Deadwood removal. Dead limbs are the first thing to come out in wind and the easiest thing to prevent.
2. Crown cleaning — removing dead, dying, diseased and broken material. This is the highest-value storm preparation there is.
3. Selective thinning where a crown is genuinely dense, to let wind pass rather than catching it. Done to standard, not excessively.
4. Clearance pruning away from the roof and structures.
5. Assessment of anything large enough to reach the house.

What not to do

Do not top trees. It is the single most damaging thing done to trees, it does not reduce storm risk, and it actively increases it. Topping forces weakly attached regrowth from latent buds, and that regrowth fails readily in exactly the conditions people topped the tree to survive.

Do not lion-tail — stripping interior branches and leaving foliage only at the tips. It moves weight to the ends of limbs and dramatically increases failure risk.

Do not over-thin. Removing too much foliage stresses the tree and does not improve wind resistance beyond a modest point.

Timing

Do it in spring, well before the season. Booking in August when a storm is named means joining a queue behind everyone else who waited.

We do pre-season assessment and pruning across Volusia and north Brevard. Call early.