What is arboriculture? Arboriculture is the science, art, and practice of caring for trees and woody plants. Arborists are experts in keeping trees and woody plants healthy, happy, and safe from damage or disease. If you have any questions about your trees or need any tree care or maintenance done, it’s best to hire an arborist instead of trying to do it yourself.
Not only can you reduce the risk of damaging your tree by hiring an expert to handle the job, but if you learn about proper tree care you’ll be able to better care for your trees in the future.
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Arboriculture
This seems like a long, fancy word that’s only important to foresters, landscapers, and arborists. Actually, there are many things that we can all do to better maintain trees around us, such as building them correctly in the first place or understanding how they grow so we can better care for them once they are part of our communities.
Arboriculture—the study of cultivating, planting, caring for, and maintaining trees—is one of those things that you can practice without an advanced degree (though a nursery school might be a good place to start). Trees have been around since dinosaurs roamed; it makes sense to think about them now so we can continue to appreciate their beauty in future years.
The Importance of Arboriculture
A Look at Why It's Necessary: Arborists, or tree care specialists, play a critical role in making sure our cities are healthy and beautiful. In fact, they're responsible for a lot of what we see around us every day.
That includes everything from planting trees to ensuring a city has enough green space to ensuring that those same trees stay healthy. This might not seem like an important job.
But when you think about how integral trees are to urban areas—as well as how much shade, oxygen, carbon sequestration, stormwater retention, and noise mitigation they provide—you begin to understand just how significant arborists' work is. Here's more on why their work can be so critical.
Why do we need Arboriculture?
Trees add value to our lives in more ways than we realize. They offer shelter from sun, wind, rain, and snow. They provide fruit for consumption as well as wood for heating or construction purposes.
Their roots stabilize the soil around houses, prevent erosion of topsoil in farmlands, reduce air pollution by absorbing carbon dioxide, convert harmful chemicals into useful ones, offer oxygen to us via photosynthesis. Without trees, our planet would be both inhospitable and lifeless.
Arboriculture is one of our most important branches of science with much work yet to be done before we understand all aspects of trees fully enough to ensure they will remain an important part of our environment far into future years.
Why do we need such a specialized field of study?
Simply put: We must learn everything there is to know about trees if we want them to continue existing.
Some History of Tree Care
In case you're wondering, arborist comes from Latin and Greek words that translate to tree care. The profession was originally based on fruit tree care.
It wasn't until 1912 that arborists began practicing in North America. In that year, a group of nurserymen who were primarily interested in increasing public interest in trees formed an organization called the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA).
Today, TCIA is one of two organizations representing professional arborists. Its 1,500 members serve as resources for communities looking to maintain their urban forest while also making sure all necessary maintenance is performed correctly.
As part of its efforts to educate communities on proper tree care techniques, TCIA also publishes Tree Care Industry Magazine every quarter.
Arborist vs. Landscaper
A landscaper’s main job is to maintain houses outside the environment. This means that they take care of things like lawn care, general landscape design, and exterior water features.
They also mow your lawn, plant flowers, and trees around your property, fertilize your soil, trim dead branches off of plants or trees...the list goes on. By contrast, an arborist works with a tree’s health from top to bottom.
They do everything from treat diseases in tree trunks to prune branches and manage pests. If you own a big house with plenty of greenery surrounding it, you should hire both an arborist and a landscaper—they complement each other well!
What do these services cost? It depends on where you live, but expect them to be about $20-$25 per hour. Services will likely be more expensive if you live in a densely populated area (New York City) as opposed to somewhere far away from people (Iowa).
Remember: If you don't know what needs fixing, don't try to fix it yourself; let professional arborists tackle all those tough jobs!
