The ones we actually get asked.

Is topping ever the right answer?

No, not as a pruning practice. There is a narrow, different thing that gets confused with it: when a tree is coming down anyway and has to be dismantled from the top, the climber removes it in sections from the top down. That is a removal, not a prune, and the tree is not expected to live.

There is also a genuine practice called pollarding, done to certain species from a young age and repeated on a strict cycle for the tree’s whole life. It is not what anybody in Southwest Florida means when they offer to top your oak, and starting it on a mature tree is just topping with a nicer name.

How much of my tree can you take off?

About a quarter of the live crown in a season, less on an old or stressed one. That is the ANSI A300 working figure and we write the actual percentage on the card. It is usually far less than people expect, and far less than what you were quoted by the crew who said they would “open it up.”

My tree is leaning after the storm. Does it have to come down?

Not automatically. The question is whether the root plate moved. Look on the side away from the lean: cracked or heaved soil, a lifted mat of turf, roots visible where they were not, a gap opening at the base on the leaning side. Those mean the tree moved in the ground and it is live.

A tree that has leaned for twenty years and grown reaction wood into the lean is a different animal. It has been building for that load its whole life. Age of the lean is the first thing we ask about.

Why won’t you cut the green fronds off my palms?

Because a palm cannot grow a replacement out of the trunk. It has one growing point at the top and a fixed number of leaves; every green frond removed is capacity taken away permanently until the palm grows a new one, which takes time it spends being weaker. Cutting to a “hurricane cut” leaves a thin spear that is more likely to snap, not less. Details on the palm page.

Do you paint the cuts?

No. Wound dressing traps moisture against the cut face and does not stop decay organisms already present. Trees compartmentalize damage from the inside and close over it from the collar outward; paint interferes with that and hides the cut from anyone inspecting it later. There is one narrow exception discussed in the trade for certain oaks in regions with an active insect-vectored wilt disease, at particular times of year — that is a regional disease-management question, not general practice, and it is not the reason anyone is selling you black tar in a bucket.

What is included bark, and why do you keep mentioning it?

Where two stems of similar size grow up together — codominant stems — they can grow with bark pinched between them instead of wood. A normal branch union has wood fibres woven through it and a raised branch bark ridge on the outside. An included union has a tight seam pushing inward, no ridge, and no fiber connection. It is one of the most common structural defects on Florida oaks and it is where trees split, often down the whole trunk. See cabling and bracing.

Can you do the work if I’m not home?

Yes, once the scope is approved in writing. That is much of the point of writing it: the crew is working to a document, not to a conversation. The card is left for you and everything on it can be checked afterwards against the tree.

Do you haul the wood away?

Whatever you want, priced as its own line. Chipped and taken. Cut to firewood length and stacked where you say. Rounds left for a neighbor with a splitter. Chips blown back into your beds — free, and genuinely good mulch, though keep them off the trunk flare.

What about the stump?

Separate line, separate machine, sometimes a separate day because the grinder is a different trip. Ground below grade rather than level with it. Expect a surprising pile of grindings: a stump occupies far more volume shredded than it did solid. Details on the stump page.

Do I need a permit to remove a tree?

Often, in Florida, and it depends on your municipality, your county, whether you are in a platted subdivision, and whether the tree is a specimen or heritage size under the local ordinance. State law also carves out an exemption for removal of a tree on residential property where a qualified professional has documented a danger — with real conditions attached to who may document it and what it must say.

We tell you which category we think you are in and what documentation would be needed. We do not tell you it is fine because we would like to do the job today.

How soon can you come after a hurricane?

Slower than you want, and the order is set by danger rather than by who called first. A limb hanging over an occupied room comes before a tree lying flat in an empty field, however dramatic the second one looks. If you are behind something more urgent you will be told that, rather than given a time that quietly passes.

Is this a real company?

No. Sable Ridge Tree Care is invented, including the address and every figure on the work order. The site exists to show a tree business what its own website could look like. The arboriculture on these pages is real; the business is not.