Plant Health Care
Plant Health Care
Our Treatment Philosophy
We offer a myriad of services to help with your tree needs with a focus on plant vigor and integration of a broad range of techniques aimed at protecting and enhancing plant health. Sometimes the issue is straightforward, easily diagnosed, and remedied. More often than not, the recommended solution is dynamic and multi-tiered. Our PHC program's goal is to help maintain or improve the landscape's appearance, vitality and safety using the most effective and environmentally sensitive practices and treatments available.
We use an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach, which is a system of controlling pests and their damaging effects through mechanical, chemical, biological, cultural and regulatory techniques. We take a look at your unique micro ecosystem when coming up with solutions.
Abiotic Disorders are caused by non-living organisms, like extreme weather events, improper planting, physical injury or drought.
Biotic Disorders are caused by living organisms, such as insects, animals, bacteria and fungi.
In order to help alleviate these biotic and abiotic issues we can lump our PHC services into certain categories:
- Soil Injections: these services involve using a soil probe to inject substances into the soil around the root zone of a tree to be absorbed by the roots. Substances that can be injected into the soil are pesticides/insecticides, nutrients, water and growth regulators.
- Aerial Sprays: most commonly these services include pesticides/insecticides, horticultural oils, fungicides and miticides. Sprays have their place, but the surrounding environment always needs to be taken into consideration so as not to cross contaminate.
- Trunk Injections: these services involve drilling directly into the root collar of a tree to inject material straight into the vascular system. These treatments can include pesticides/insecticides, antibiotics and nutrients.
- Cultural Treatments: these can include changing/altering the environment surrounding the tree. Root collar excavations are a good example of this, pulling away excess material (soil, rocks, mulch, etc.) we can ensure the root collar is properly exposed. Another cultural treatment is a root zone remediation, which involves aerating the soil around the root zone of the tree and adding in prescribed nutrients, then leaving the area covered in mulch
Colorado stressors
As we all know, Colorado weather keeps us on our toes! Here in the front range, the combination of high elevation and mid-latitude interior continent geography results in a cool, dry but invigorating climate. There are large seasonal swings in temperature and large day to night changes. Needless to say, we have some unique stressors that we deal with. Every year, drought and heat becomes more and more of a talking point. Our abnormal freezing temperatures, winter storms, hail, fire, wind and floods all lead to a very interesting place to live and care for trees. We also have quite a few pests and diseases to control for: emerald ash borer, fireblight, kermes scale, red turpentine beetle, IPS beetle, European elm scale, oak leaf blister, pine wilt nematode and mountain pine beetle, to name just a few.
Contact us
We love connecting with people around their trees! Plant health care is all about timing and ensuring treatments are done at the correct time of year.
Call (303-554-7035) or email helloboulder@savatree.com to get one of our certified arborists out to talk trees.