Tree Service in Woodburn, IN

Tree Service in Woodburn comes with a bit of irony. The town was platted in 1865 as Phelps Station and replatted later that year as Woodburn, after the enormous wood burnings settlers used to clear the land. Pioneers then drained the ground to farm it. What is left today is flat, open country in Maumee Township, east of Fort Wayne along U.S. 24, where the trees around homes and farmsteads stand with little shelter from the wind.

August 24, 2016

Woodburn residents will remember the afternoon a high-end EF3 multiple-vortex tornado touched down northwest of town. Its path ran 5.26 miles and reached 500 yards wide before it lifted east of Harlan. Survey teams found barns destroyed, a house swept off its subfloor, combines thrown, and many large trees snapped and uprooted, some stripped of their bark. Surveyors noted the damage to vehicles and machinery suggested it may have been even stronger than its EF3 rating.

A storm like that is beyond any pruning plan. But the more common storms here, the summer lines of thunderstorms and the wind behind spring fronts, are where tree care makes a difference. A tree with one dead leader, a split crotch or a crown loaded to one side fails in winds that a balanced, healthy tree will ride out.

After a storm: the order of work

1. Keep everyone away from any wire touching a tree, and report it to the utility. Do not cut near it. 2. Get trees and limbs off the house, garage and driveway so you can secure the building and get vehicles out. 3. Deal with hangers, broken limbs still caught in the crown, before anyone mows or works underneath. 4. Decide on the damaged trees that are still standing: some can be pruned back to sound wood; others have lost too much and should come down. 5. Clean up, haul brush and grind stumps when the urgent part is done.

If you have homeowner's insurance, take photos before anything is moved. Our written estimate lists each tree and the work, which is what most adjusters ask to see.

Everyday work in town

Woodburn is small, with 672 housing units on just under a square mile at the 2020 census. Its streets are lined with older homes whose shade trees have grown large. Typical jobs include removing deadwood, raising limbs over the street, cutting back branches from roofs and removing ash trees that have died. On farm properties nearby, windbreak and fence-row work is common.

Replanting after losses

When a yard loses its only shade tree, owners often ask what to plant next. On open, windy lots like those around Woodburn, a mix of species does better than a single row of one kind, and trees placed a little farther from the house will not have to be pruned off the roof in twenty years. Purdue Extension also advises planting large trees well away from overhead lines, and calling Indiana 811 before any digging. We are happy to talk through spacing and species on the same visit as the removal.

Talk to us

Call (260) 305-9252 to set up a visit or send details through the form. You can call any time and leave a message with the address and what happened.