Planting to Prevent Storm Damage

Perhaps the greatest service an arborist can offer is advice before trees are even selected for planting in your landscape. Choosing plant varieties that can withstand ice and wind, as well as placing them properly in your landscape, can eliminate problems for decades to come. Selecting trees with favorable wood strength properties is important when you consider the wind and ice storms that Michigan trees are subjected to. Arborists are also able to give the best advice on determining the best disease-resistant plant varieties to use in your landscape.

Doesn’t this really make sense? Think about this: who gets called out to clean up storm-damaged trees? The landscape architect? The tree nursery? The landscaper? No, the tree service does! Arborists see the landscape tree species that are most often impacted by storms. So, it only stands to reason that tree service arborists have a pretty good idea which tree species are resistant to storm damage and which tree species are susceptible to storm damage.

While not complete or comprehensive, the following table does show the susceptibility of some common Michigan tree species to storm damage. Another factor to consider is the location of the tree in your landscape. It might be perfectly fine to plant a tree that is susceptible to storm damage if it is going to be planted in a protected area. But the same tree in an area exposed to wind, for example, might never make it to maturity.