Should you cut down diseased trees?

But when trees are sick or dead, they can cause more harm than good. They can fall and cause serious damage to property or even kill people. To avoid these problems, it is essential to cut down trees that have more negative effects than benefits on your property. The decision to remove diseased trees should be an easy one.

They attract pests that can infest other trees, their disease infects other trees, they can fall and cause damage or death, they are easier to eliminate when they are more stable and unattractive. When a tree has problems, it's often difficult to decide when to remove it. Many factors, such as the cost of working on the tree and sometimes even emotional ties to the tree, can come into play. Dying trees found in natural areas and do not pose a property hazard and people can be allowed to die instead without human intervention.

Dead trees serve as places for various species of woodpeckers and other wild animals to find food and a place to nest. However, dangerous trees that have structural defects that could cause injury to people or damage property require immediate attention. They must be evaluated by a certified arborist. This is particularly true for ash trees that have been killed by the emerald ash borer.

Your wood becomes very brittle due to damage to the borer's power supply and branch breakage is a major concern. Removing these trees can be complicated, even for experienced tree professionals. In this situation, we recommend that you contact a professional to remove dead ash trees as soon as possible. If the condition doesn't require immediate attention, we'll address the problem in the next pruning cycle.

If you want to prune the tree yourself, you must first submit the necessary permits. To learn more about this process, visit our Working on or near trees page. Not all fungi that grow under trees are associated with root diseases, but fungi that grow on the tree are an indication of internal rot and should be evaluated by an arborist. Oak wilt, Dutch elm disease, cankers, apple scab and many others are easy to transmit between trees, making the need to eliminate diseased trees much greater.

Trees with less damage from a non-contagious disease could be recovered with extensive pruning to remove diseased branches. Let's dive deeper into each of these reasons to fully explain why you should remove sick trees as soon as possible. As long as a tree isn't a hazard with dead or diseased branches, it's often possible to leave it alone for a period of time.