The drought has been hard on our trees. Even if you watered your trees throughout the summer, our trees have suffered. As we have heard, it should be a wet year. This can cause our trees some problems.
November is a great time of the year to inspect our landscape trees for hazards. Most of the leaves have fallen, leaving a clear view of the tree structure. Although some tree failures are not predictable and cannot be prevented, many failures can be prevented. By inspecting trees for common structural defects, many potential failures can be corrected before they cause damage or injury.
Stand back and look at the whole tree. Thoroughly inspect the tree for defects in the following order.
Lean
Multiple trunks
Weakly attached branches
Cavities and decay
Cracks in the trunk and branches
Hanging or broken branches
Dead branches
For details and pictures, click here. Pages 6 and 7 have detailed pictures.