Maintaining your home is a lot of work. Growing up, you may have been taught about paying the bills on time, raking the leaves, mowing the lawn, watering the plants, but there are things people just don’t tend to talk about quite as much...

You may not have been taught how to deal with hornets nests, or how to pick the right plumber.

It is probably safe to say, most of us weren’t taught how to pick the right tree care specialist for our homes.

There are actually a lot of different factors to consider when choosing what kind of arborist or tree specialist you are going to hire to work on the trees around your home.

With all of that in mind, we have prepared a guide with advice on how you can choose a tree specialist, tree surgeon, or tree pruning specialist. Some of this information will be somewhat common sense, and some of it will be a little less obvious.

If you are one of those people looking to get some tree work done, we invite you to kick off your shoes and check out our tips on the different factors you should consider.

We will start by talking about reviews and recommendations.

Talk To Friends And Neighbors

Remember the old days when neighbors talked to each other? This may be a great opportunity to start a conversation with the people who live around you. If any of them have had good experiences with a tree specialist, they may be the best guy (or gal) to go with.

Chances are if they have already worked on some trees and plants in your neighborhood, this specialist already has a pretty good grasp on environmental factors in your little corner of the world- native plants, wildlife, maybe even the type of soil they may be working with.

Now, your neighbors may be jerks. If they are greedy people, inconsiderate, or listen to Limp Bizkit too loudly, you may want to take whatever advice they have and do the opposite.

Or you may just want to avoid them.

If you don’t have any friends or neighbors who can give you suggestions, it may be time to do a Google search or browse Yelp. Take online reviews with a grain of salt and try your best to figure out which reviews were written by real people with realistic explanations.

If you do end up searching online, look for reviews that mention things that are important to you.

Factors To Consider When Reading Reviews:

• Honesty
• Reliability
• Experience Level
• Commitment To Safety
• Commitment To The Environment

Once you have read some reviews, you can make a short list of potential candidates who meet your standards. Let’s talk about what you can do with that list.

My Mother Told Me You’d Better Shop Around

Aside from talking to neighbors, folks used to dial numbers into their phones and talk to people live. When choosing a tree specialist, you may be better off talking to someone over the phone rather than just dropping them an email or text.

There are certain things that you can learn about someone over the phone better than you could with an email. You can probably pick up a little bit about their attitude- how they talk about their work and interact with customers.

You also will get a real-time response, rather than a prewritten email that may be overly salesy.

Often people are also more often to give you a good deal when you have them on the phone.

Call a few different specialists. Get different prices. Ask a lot of questions.

It may be tempting to just settle on the person who promises the most work for the least money. It’s just not that simple.

After Talking To A Few Specialists, Ask These Questions:

• Who Sounded The Most Honest?
• Did Anyone Make Unrealistic Promises?
• Was There A Significant Difference In Price?
• Did It Sound Like Anyone May Be Overcharging You?
• Did It Sound Like Anyone May Be Likely To Cut Corners?

In some ways, you want to think about a tree specialist in the same way that you think about a mechanic. Many of us were taught that if you meet a mechanic who honestly tells you that there is nothing wrong with your car, you should consider yourself their customer for life.

That is not a bad approach to take with tree specialists. If one specialist has a long list of things you should hire them to do and another seems more concerned about doing you right than taking your money, you will want to go with the one that shows integrity.

It seems that we have talked quite a bit about some common sense wisdom. Let’s talk about some stuff that is maybe less obvious.

Beware Of The Man Who Tells You What You Want To Hear

We just mentioned the importance of honesty, but this really needs to be expanded upon. If someone tells you they are going to do a lot of work for very little money, they are either lying or they are probably going to do a sloppy job.

Sloppy tree workers won’t just make your property look worse. They may put you in danger, they may damage your property, or they may put their crew at risk.

If there are no further questions about how to judge the character and integrity of your potential future tree specialist, it seems like a perfect time to pivot to the more purely financial questions.

Flat Rate Vs Hourly

Some specialists charge by the hour, some charge by the job (e.g. by the tree), and some charge by the day. This is driven by the basic economics of how they can ensure that a project is worth clearing out time in their schedule.

If you trust the honesty and integrity of the people you are working with, paying them by the day or by the job may be your best bet.

Advantages Of Flat Rate Tree Work By The Job:

• You Are Less Likely To Get Milked For Cash
• You Can Better Predict The Cost Of The Work
• Tree Workers Are Often More Likely To Do Thorough Work

Advantages Of Paying For Tree Work By The Hour:

• You Can Sometimes Save Money
• There Is Often More Price Transparency

Advantages Of Flat Rate Tree Work By The Day:

• An Honest Worker Will Do As Much Work As They Can
• Workers Will Be More Focused On The Quality Of Their Work

Aside from working out whether you are going to pay by the hour, by the project, or by the day, you will also want to think about what kind of business you want to support. We’re going to address this by talking about the differences between small businesses and larger businesses.

Small Business Vs Big Business

When you search out a tree care specialist, you are likely going to come up with a few companies at the top of the search, with maybe hundreds of reviews. If you do a deeper search, you may find some smaller businesses that base their business more on addressing the needs of a few clients.

Larger Businesses

These companies tend to have a good reputation for a good reason. In general, you can assume that they have all of their proper licensures and certificates in place and they probably have more than decent insurance. If you are looking to hire someone for a one time job, this may be your best bet.

Smaller Businesses

If you are thinking that you are going to be getting tree work done fairly regularly, you may consider working with a smaller company. This is a good opportunity to support your community and you can build a more personal relationship with the workers.

Small companies may be easier to make good deals with if they see that working with you is a meaningful investment.

Door To Door Arborists

One note of caution is that you will want to avoid working with “door to door” arborists. Good tree workers usually rely on building a reputation based on word of mouth for their stellar work and their relationships with their clients. Bigger companies may also rely on customer reviews.

In any case, they are not likely to cold call you or knock on your door for your business.

Next up, let’s talk about some other tips to avoid potentially shady businesses.

Get Everything In Writing, Don’t Pay Up Front

As a customer, you need to be careful if you don’t want to be taken advantage of. Of course, you want to avoid being overly demanding. 

Here’s a few more tips:

• Pay For The Work After It Is Done
• Ask For Expenses To Be Itemized
• Get All Estimates And Agreements In Writing
• You May Consider Requesting Any Choices That Will Add To The Bill Should Be Cleared By You Before Implemented
• Specifically Ask About Potential Additional Expenses Such As Transportation, Overtime Rates, And Charges For Use Of Extra Equipment
• Keeping All Of This In Mind, Please Remember To Be Polite And Patient.
• Don’t Be A Jerk.

Gear Choices, Pest Control, And Chemicals

Trees can have all kinds of pests in them. This includes the trees in your yard - yes your yard. No matter how clean your yard is, there may be rodents, goblins, or insects in your trees. Thankfully, tree specialists are used to this and won’t shame you… too much.

Also, there probably aren’t really goblins in your trees.

Anyway, this brings up another point. It may be important to you how pests are dealt with. If you are conscious of the use of pesticides or other chemicals, that conversation should happen ahead of time.

Similarly, you will probably want to ask your tree specialist about what kind of gear they use. Spikes and misused spurs can do permanent damage to trees. Most tree specialists who are passionate about their work are going to be mindful of these things.

A good tree worker who truly follows the philosophies of arboriculture will probably care even more than you do about plant health and the ethical issues that can come with pest control.

Now that we have discussed a number of different things to consider when getting tree work done, let’s wrap things up and let you get on your way.

Final Thoughts

Your decisions on who you hire to do work should reflect your values. When it comes to issues about supporting small businesses or working with businesses with an established relationship, this should be based on your priorities. Similarly, the types of chemicals and gear used in tree work on your property should reflect your values. In the end, only you can make these decisions.

Hopefully, this guide has given you some food for thought and maybe some useful information. Now go out and hire your tree specialist soul mate.