Are you planning to buy property for the trees and privacy? Are you someone that wants to protect the trees on your property? Or maybe just know more about them? You should consider getting a forest health inspection.
Over the course of our transaction we started noticing more and more dead pockets of trees in the woods. I was trying to be optimistic and assumed this is what normal forests are like, and we’re just noticing it more because the woods are not greened up at this time of year being that it is winter.
When Kody and I were volunteering in a state park last year, the DNR representative gave us a list of local service providers to help consult on land. We had called one that seemed local to us. They were very quick to say that yes, they would be able to consult us if there was disease on the property, however it will come with a cost.
I just recall hearing something in the past about the county or Township or even state coming out to consult on issues with regards to natural landscape, included in the tax services we already pay. We ended up finding a county contact that dealt with invasive species. They did meet Kody at the land one day during our inspection period and consult on the land, free of charge. However, it was a very inconclusive discussion. They mentioned how to look out for certain shrubs and vines, but did not have expertise related to the trees. They ended up telling us they could only really consult on the trees when the leaves came out.
We then were directed to the Michigan State University extension that supports private landowners and consults on landscape issues. We had sent the photos over and the response back was that the photos looked fine, but we weren't convinced without someone on the ground at the property.
There are a list of foresters and arborists in the area but the list is lengthy, and even when licensed, as we know with our builder and architect research, that not all are created equal with qualifications and talents ranging in all shapes and sizes. While trading texts with one arborist, I was not confident hiring him was the best choice for us.
Fast forward to us not even being in the inspection period anymore - Kody was at the property again when we went to go visit it with a builder. As I’m talking to the builder I see Kody running around frantically looking at all the trees starting to panic that there really is death and disease amongst our trees. Over the course of our initial suspicions, he had done some preliminary research into what 'Oak Wilt' was and there was a slight concern it was on our parcel. He ended up finding a tree that had what we called 'spores' or 'pressure pads', took a photo of it, and that night went home to research Oak Wilt for what seemed like hours. He ended up watching a video hosted by the same girls from the county who visited our property; they had a forest expert to come talk about Oak Wilt disease in particular for a long lecture (here is a link to the video). It was amazing to us that these county representatives never even directed us to this individual.
Kody called the lecturer the next day as he was so impressed by her lengthy knowledge but assumed she came with a price. We ended up having her come out to the property even after the due diligence inspection, but we made sure it was before closing just in case we could negotiate some contingency money toward the containment of Oak Wilt (if that's what we had).
In lieu of disclosing her fees I will just say that it was a few hundred dollars for a couple hours. But holy smokes it was literally the best inspection I could’ve asked for and I would do it over and over again! I would ever even have her back out as the seasons change. The fact is that the professionals that we had out to the property did not have the expertise enough around trees to be able to not only identify trees in the winter, but identify tree diseases in the winter. *TIP: If you are looking for an inspector like this near you I would contact your local DNR representative or county environmental group and ask for a local private Forest Health Inspector, specializing in disease identification and mitigation. She had done an incredible amount of research relative to the Oak Wilt phenomenon in the Midwest and how to eradicate it.
You can see the images of our concerns here. We went in wondering if we had certain diseases or pests that could just spread to the rest of our trees and kill them; it felt like we were taking a bit of risk buying in the winter without being able to truly see if trees were healthy or not, and were hoping she could tell us.
When Kody, myself, and the tree inspector all arrived to the property we showed her the initial trees we sent photos of for her to identify what the diseases and pests were, where we should be concerned, and how to eradicate/mitigate the spread of the phenomena to the rest of our trees. This took about 30-45minutes. She couldn’t stop complimenting how wonderful of a parcel it was. We ended up finding out that the tree with the spore pads was actually in old ash tree or elm, not oak (phew!). As we progressed though the forest, we then got better advice from her relative to maintaining the forest overall including identifying trees that may have a limb breaking soon where we needed to prune to avoid a break that could damage other trees. We walked around roughly 4 acres of our parcel with her, because the full 10 acres has wetlands and not-so-critical areas to check. So it took two hours to walk about 4 acres and we were moving quick!
*TIP: We were consistently advised that we should really only be cutting and pruning trees in the month of November through February. You may wonder, "well maybe it's fine if I cut it down completely?" However, if you cut down an oak tree in the middle of the summer, that smell is like candy to certain bugs that spread disease. So the infected bugs, maybe a mile away, will smell it, come to the tree, and crawl underneath the bark and infect it. What will happen over the course of the next season is that the tree will then become infected in the roots and with the roots infected, it can then spread to any tree in its root system...which basically means it can rapidly take out your entire forest. This is pertaining to the Oak Wilt phenomenon specifically, but can be similar for other diseases and pests. Hence why Kody and I took this seriously because that would completely take out tens of thousands of dollars in value of our property and completely negate us buying a wooded property in the first place.
The time of year we had this inspection coincidentally happened to be PERFECT. While many may say evaluate when you have leaves, I was SO happy we went late March in the winter. We were forced to look at the bark to learn how to ID trees. Also it was a time when things were ever so slightly budding so we could look in the canopy to understand the health of the tree, which the inspector referred to frequently. Also we were able to actually see through the forest better and cover ground faster. For these reasons, *TIP: I highly advise considering late winter/early spring for your inspection. However it certainly depends on your inspection/due diligence timeframe as well for purchasing your parcel.
What I learned from her visit:
Revalidated my hunch we will begin construction early next year, instead of the fall. She said to cut trees down Nov-Feb which makes sense to reduce the opportunity for open wounds to attract pests and spread disease amongst the forest
We need to put in the construction contract to have the builder pay for damages made to protected trees and to stay outside of the boundaries indicated. Cannot compact and suffocate roots
Use wood chips to protect roots / provides a dampener to not compact the ground near the tree
The tree needs 1 foot of protection for every 1 inch circumference, measured at 4.5 feet above grade
I was concerned about trees falling in the road being my responsibility, however she said we can call road commission or MDOT, who has an arborist on staff
How DIVERSE our forest is!!!!!! My heart melted!! Species included but not limited to,
Red oak - textured but smooth as it goes up - she liked those
Hickory - stout branch - valuable - environment for bats
Maple - not as valuable
Beech - keeps leaves - valuable
Ash - lots dead due to invasive beetle
White Pine
Elm - has tan bark
Poplar - have root rot on one of them; need to keep that confined to that area and burn it
White oak - rounded off leaves - valuable
Black cherry - dark bark
Serviceberry - happily learned about this native one I can find at a nursery and plant more along driveway that have white blossoms in spring! Also environment for certain birds
Sassafras
How much I enjoy enthusiastic, passionate, like-minded people who appreciate nature and trees and ecosystems the way we do. I hope to volunteer more at parks in the future
MADHORSE bud arrangement trick to identify trees
I was worried about how to get rid of invasive species while protecting my ground water. She confirmed that a Glyphosate dabber is best. It binds to organic material so will stay with the plant. She IDs death in plants all the time due to herbicide leakage from someone using other active ingredients. Must be PURE glyphosate 41%, no other active ingredients. Will not seep into groundwater. Waste of time in the spring, do it in the fall when shrubs are sucking in resources
What the most valuable thing to me was her identifying the different trees and teaching us how to identify them based on the bark
Soap that cuts through poison ivy oils seen here
From conversations with another arborist about our property previously, I also learned the natural life cycle of our forest is aspen/maple --> oak/hickory --> beech/sugar maple. We are mostly in the oak/hickory stage.
As your can see, we learned so much about IDing trees, learning about them, how to protect them during construction, what diseases/pests were the cause of many that have died, and a general health assessment of the forest. We truly realized how much more qualified she was than the many people we talked to previous. In kody’s words, she was “intelligent and energetic.” It was when the forest expert said what a beautiful parcel we have and how lucky we are, that’s when my day was truly made. Overall it was the most amazing instruction and professional experience I could’ve asked for! She even provided a report after meeting. If anyone is in the southeast Michigan area and looking for a tree expert I would be happy to provide her contact info.
So it's time to ask yourself: Why did you buy the land? Although you'd get a routine inspection on a house, what do you truly love about your property and want to protect? And get the expert out to inspect that. Maybe it's the forest, maybe wetlands, or a lake - whatever it is, it's so exciting to learn more about our properties and how to take care of them.
Here are contact links for the resources I mentioned:
In the video below we discuss this inspection as well!
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