Your Backyard Forest - Identify and Manage Hazardous Tree Defects

Finding multiple defects in a tree should be your red flag when evaluating its potential to fail. Multiple defects that are touching or are close to one another should be carefully examined. If more than one serious defect occurs on the tree’s main stem, you should assume that the tree poses a very high level of risk and corrective actions should be taken.
If a high-risk situation exists, there are four recommended options for correcting the problem:
• move the target • prune the tree • convert the tree to a wildlife tree or • remove the tree
Moving the target is often an inexpensive, effective, and simple treatment for correcting a high-risk tree. Easily moved items like play sets and swings, vehicles, and picnic tables can be placed out of the reach of the hazardous tree with little effort and expense. If the target cannot be moved and a high-risk situation exists, consider blocking access to the target area until the hazard can be eliminated.