Right Tree, Right Place

Overview

In Episode 4 of SYNKD On Air, Angelique chats with Adam Heard, Vice President of Sales for The Arbor Group about urban tree health, controversial takes on tree trimming and how the landscaping industry as whole can learn better practices for a healthier environment.

Key take-aways:

• Disagreement exists regarding the impact of tree trimming on tree health.
• Tree care companies should prioritize quality and value over commoditization.
• Encourage responsible tree trimming based on accurate knowledge and a commitment to tree well-being.
• Promote higher standards and education in the tree care industry for a healthier urban forest and sustainable tree care.

Transcript

Angelique
Well, let's talk about what you posted on LinkedIn, because I'm gonna pull it up right now, too. But what you said could be very confrontational?

Adam
I know the word you're looking for. It's not confrontational. It is...

Angelique
Controversial.

Adam
Controversial. That's it? Gosh, I've today's been my day of tip of the tongue tip of the tongue. And I just can't. Controversial for sure.

Angelique
Well, yeah. So do you see this as addressing? I mean, I see in your, in your message that you're saying to all my property managers and tree care service providers out there. You know, tree trimming is not a service that promotes tree health. And I think that statement in itself, kind of, you know, sets the scene. Can I ask your opinion, do you think that project managers and arborist should we not say arborist should we say tree care service providers?

Adam
I'd say tree care service advisors, because some of them are arborist and some of them, aren't. It what does it mean to be an arborist today anyway, it's so easy to pass that test, like, you know, and even if the test is hard, if you're a good study, or people who know a lot about trees, but can't study, well, don't test well aren't passing it people who study well pass it. And I don't think that it's a real, adequate measure of a person's competency to tell you the truth. 

Angelique
We don't want to be afraid of bringing these things up. I want opinions on the industry. And we're starting a podcast next week. And so I'm thinking that we should have you on the podcast to, to do? Well, you know, I read something about a month ago, that said, urban trees, the the statistic on urban trees, is that there's a mortality rate of 50%. And I was like, Oh, my God, you know, we spent all this time and effort, planning and planting, and we have, and there's so many things to help us these days. We should not be at a 50% mortality rate, anywhere.

Adam
We shouldn't. So, there's so much behind it, too. There's so much that's going on behind why that happens. But I felt like

Angelique
Okay, first off, it's right tree right place. Because I know in my little town of Lafayette, Louisiana, the downtown, which is all concrete has bald cypress from one end to the other bonsai Cypress. So you can see the knees coming up. Like, you know, 40 feet down the street where there's no bald cypress, and it's pushing up the paving. And I've talked to business owners that say that their pipes are getting destroyed by the cypress trees.

Adam
Oh, I'm sure. I mean, you can imagine what there couldn't be. Well, there probably are worse trees. But I don't know.

Adam
I mean, that's like that's like a ficus tree for there's like a five history for us in Southern California. So, you know, it's it's fascinating how depending on where you are in the world, at being an arborist, you may not know anything about how it's like when you say bald cypress. I'm like, I don't get a whole lot of them out here. So I'm waiting for you to tell me like what's happening with the bald cypress. Is that cool that they're lying? Or is it a problem? It'd be like lining a street full of ficus trees. Where I'm at where those things just rip the concrete the hardscape to shreds.

Angelique
Yeah, yeah, it is like that. And so so sorry, I didn't follow on but but again, that's why we we like to have a regional output, you know, where we have the West Region versus the Southeast region because we and I know the West is probably it's probably too big of a region. But again, you know, we have to, we have to do something. It's right Drea right place, but but I think you hit on a really interesting point about tree trimming. Are we doing it to keep busy?

Adam
Yeah, so I think so I'll go on the record and say, I think tree trimming is important. But I just think it's important for reasons that have nothing to do with keeping trees healthy. Right. So I think that I think that when we talk about tree trimming, and when we're in the discussion as to why we would trim a tree, we really just need to be honest about what goals we're really accomplishing. You know, on the one hand, it's easy to be appears to be like, stop doing tree trimming, that's bad for trees, right, and, like, Stop doing that. On the one hand, like, well, it's

Angelique
Not practical to do that.

Adam
Because property owners own trees, they're their trees, they have a right to determine how they want their trees to look and perform, whatever and that's fine, you know, like, they want to do that and it's damaged to the trees, that's unfortunate, they're gonna have to recycle those trees out. Over time, it's going to be a long term more expensive investment for them to do it that way. But if they want to do it, that's fine. Let's just be honest, though, that service providers and not act as if we're doing that, in some sort of way that it's good for the tree. You know, we do these full canopy trims these full crown reductions, you know, shaping anything, anything that we do, gosh, Crown thinning is the worst. But whenever we sell these surfaces, for some reason, there's this mentality in the tree care industry and this belief system by own tree owners who are hiring companies do this that for some reason, this is a need to be performed for the sake of the trees, and it just flat out not the case. Like that's not that's not congruent with how trimming actually affects trees. 

Adam
I saw so down in Southern California, we are inundated with landscaping companies that have tree care divisions. And they drive me nuts because these lands these tree care divisions sell super dirt cheap tree work and 90% of time. You see them over thinning trees, their quote, lacing trees is I hate that.

Angelique
What is lacing trees?

Adam
Lacing trees is some sort of cowboy term that somehow got adopted. That basically, is when somebody just fully completely trims out all the material the tree and just leaves stuff on the ends, you know, so that you can fully see through the tree.

Angelique
I've seen that. I didn't know that was a term for it. 

Adam
It's not an it's not an NC standards recognized term, nor is it a term that's recognized within the ISA. But it's an understood term, so far as some layman's term, like, it makes trees look Lacy, you know, like, like a doily lace. I don't use it, I refuse to use it, I get cringy every single time I even hear the word in reference to that kind of service. But it's not good for trees, and ornamentally. From an untrained eye, you can say, Oh, that looks really cool. Looks really nice. Sure, ornamentally. If all you care about is aesthetics, and you aren't concerned about any of the impacts that it has on a tree physiologically or whatever, then sure it can be pretty, right, whatever.

But if the companies with tree care divisions, they sell this really horrible work, they train clients to believe that this is how it should be done. This is good work. This is good service. This is a good product. And all the while we have other companies like the one that I work for, and others like ours, that are really promoting tree work that is intended to promote a healthy urban forest. And that work is more expensive. And even though we don't take as much out we hire people who are trained on how to make the cuts, we bring in educated Mills on all aspects of the team. And when we do that work, it also takes a little bit more time because we take our we take care and precision to make the right cuts whereas these other guys come through and they just trim trim, trim, trim, trim, clean, clean, clean, and then they're out of their way. And so we're constantly fighting against this tide of, of really negative belief surrounding this idea that we purchased this service because it's good, too. And it's just nothing could be further from the truth. And so in this landscape CEO put this post that said, let me see if I can find it.

Okay. It says pruning trees is not just about aesthetics, it's about promoting the health and safety of the tree. And then he went in to further say, proper Arbor care allows for better air circulation and sunlight penetration, which in turn promotes photosynthesis and helps the tree to produce chlorophyll, this ultimately leads to a healthier, more beautiful landscape, let's work together to ensure the longevity and vitality of our green spaces through proper Arbor care. And I read that I'm just like, you're, you're totally wrong. Like, I mean, this is this. And this is a CEO of a really big company in Orange County. And I'm sure that his intentions are really good, and that he really believes that this is true, but he's wrong. And and it's this kind of this kind of thinking, this kind of bad information that's being given to our clients in the form of good education that is really causing this industry to be inundated with service providers that are doing a disservice to the urban forest. And they're doing a further disservice to our customer base, because they're giving our customers a bad education. And so, you know, I just I responded to that post. And then I just felt compelled to make my own post, because I've got a huge network of clients and people on LinkedIn, I've got, you know, 5000 plus whatever I'm like, I'm just gonna put this truth out there and just see what ends up happening with it. Because I've been doing this for over 20 years, I'm sick of it. I'm just I'm so sick of the bad information.

Angelique
Well, it pulls it pulls down the industry.

Adam
Yeah, it pulls the whole industry down. If we don't, you know, already. We have an industry that can be seen as, you know, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, because, you know, we have clients that, oh, no, I can get it cheaper by somebody else. But what they, you know, we're always battling against that cheapness from uninsured, untrained people that, you know, do the differently part is when the cheapness actually comes from people who are fully licensed, fully insured. That's the worst part that comes from them. Because then it's like, a couple of things happen.

One, it means that they're telling everybody this industry is a scarcity mindset industry. And we're only as good as a commodity, right. And it's like, the tree care industry is one of the last industries that should be commoditized. Because we're live, we're dealing with biological organisms. And we're dealing with life, right, every single time one of these guys gets put sat, sat alone, and hoists themselves up into the tree with all that sharp equipment, they're, they're putting their life at risk. Now, it's not like they're jumping out of a plane every single day, or, you know, doing something that crazy, because if you trust your equipment, if you pay attention to what's happening around you, if you're using your stuff correctly, and you're practicing within a culture of safety, you're gonna go home everyday safe, and you're gonna have a super satisfying career.

But the reality is, is something could go wrong. And so why would you want Why would you put yourself in a position to commoditize that and then if a company who is fully licensed and insured has the contractors licenses that they need to, you know, and there's hiring people who have college educations, and things of that sort, everything looks like on paper that they're doing it right. If they're selling this work for cheap and not doing the work properly? What does that tell about their value system about how much they really care about the urban culture, you know, hey, we'll sell this work cheap. It will trim these trees fast. We don't really think that investing in the, in the urban forest is really an important thing in your actions, and your pricing dictate your value system. And that's just something that I did I think is is true and unavoidable. And so the more a company behaves like a commodity, the less I think they really value their trade.

Angelique
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. And, you know, we have this fantastic industry that you know, when you think about it, you know that with climate change, and issues like this, we can make the biggest impact on the future of the planet. I mean, how we are placed like that we, we have science behind our industry, it's just that it it gets diluted when people are not doing it. Right. And not educating clients or, or other industry members. 

Adam
Yeah. Or, or if they think they're doing educating, they're giving bad information, which is the worst. Because, you know, these same guys are the ones say, we need to educate our clients, we need to educate our clients. And I'm like, You're right. So please, educate them with something that's true, you know, like, don't don't educate them to believe why is like educate them to or falsities? I will say lies because I don't think that they're intentionally misguiding their clients, I just think that they're ignorant, I just think that they don't have good information. And they haven't, they have not invested in their own knowledge and, and product knowledge, by talking to plant pathologist talking to researchers, talking to other companies in the area who are doing things differently and are viewed as experts, you know, talking to board certified master arborist, you know, they're not doing these things. And so, you know, they, they just go along and continue to share bad information, or they'll find, maybe they'll read one article, and they'll find one thing in the article that that aligns with the belief that they already have. And then they'll say, say, Look, that's they'll take it out of the context. And they'll say this expert said this, and I say this, because like, wow, that's way out of context, man. I mean, for example, you know, sunlight penetration promotes photosynthesis, which helps trees produce more chlorophyll. That's true. But it's detrimental to the tree when you're taking 50% of the canopy out every single year. Right?

Adam
I don't know about you, but I just haven't seen a whole lot of tree tree care companies out in the Redwood Forest. And you seem to be doing really well. You know, so.

Angelique
So what, what do you think? You know, we have we have what you wrote in the LinkedIn profile, which is great, because you give the reasons for treat the proper reasons for tree trimming. And you say, let's not fool ourselves that we need tree trimming for health. You're right. Nature does it itself.

You know, I have a water oak in my backyard and around here. Water oaks are seen as you know, they're gonna fall on your house. Yeah, Hurricane come through, have to take out any water oak. But we have this beautiful water oak that towers above our house. And my goal was, just make sure it's healthy, and make sure anything around the base isn't detrimental. And there were a few limbs that needed to be cut. So they weren't. You know, they told me about how you look for the the W's versus the U's and so they were just looking at each junction and, and also where the weight was maybe, you know, hanging over too much. And they did their I mean, my husband was like, "Did he really do anything there?" And I was like, Yeah, they did. But you shouldn't actually be able to tell. Exactly, it should be done so well, and so thoughtful, that they you know, they spent a good one climber in that tree, I think spent half a day, but you couldn't actually tell. And I love that. Because, again, you know, nature, you know, you'll have some some limbs or some branches, you know, I'm not an arborist. So you can tell but, you know, you have them die off and they'll fall and I and I think t wow, that was meant to happen.

Adam
So like, that's the difference between a tree in nature right in the tree in an urban forest, right, is that we have the trees interface with different environments, right? So in the National Forest, we're we don't have a whole lot of concern about limbs dropping and falling on cars or buildings or whatever. So we have to address those kinds of things when they come up because they happen with trees right? So it's not like I'm saying it's a tree. Yeah, but you know, like, touch it for the right reasons. And yeah, but when you say a water oak, by the way, my grandfather's from New Orleans. He eventually ended up moving out to La Mesa, California, which is in San Diego area. And he planted Louisiana water oaks on his property. And he had a huge, gigantic like 110 foot Louisiana water of one in his backyard and one of the front yard and it did exactly what you just did magnificent tree. It's still there. It's probably 56-60 years old, you planted on acorns just absolutely beautiful, beautiful trees. So when you said that as like, Oh, I feel a little nostalgia. Oh, I know what those trees look like. They're beautiful.

Angelique
They can be beautiful. I think what's happened is that the ones that have fallen. And it was really interesting. I think trees are so neat that they adapt to their, their environment, you know, and, and we had this friend that had when he told me this story. He was like, Oh, this water oak fell, and it hit my roof. And then we had, so we removed all trees from our front garden. But But what happened when he told me further back, he goes, Oh, when we moved in, we had lots of trees. And then we had all of these, you know, he kind of pointed out we had a bunch of trees here and we took them out. So what happened is, it was like a story. If you imagine that you had a little forest, and then you removed half of the forest. And then the tree that was left had been protected all its life. And then a hurricane came through and knocked it down and hit part of his house. And I was like, Well, it's because you took away its protection.

Adam
You're actually right. That's actually Ed Gilman at the University of Florida does studies on this stuff.

Angelique
He wrote for our magazine once.

Adam
He's rad. So he talks about that stuff. And there's another guy from the UK or No, he's in Canada now. And his name is Julian Dunster, and he is the one who pioneered the track program. And Julian Dunster, he's fantastic. Oh, my gosh, you would love him, he's, he's got the guy's got the most amazing eyebrows in the world. Truly industry, he's so funny. He's so smart. And he's he's a expert in tree biomechanics and risk and risk assessment. And he talks about that, and he calls it the idiot standard, which is where you have a bunch of trees in, in one group is called a stand of trees. And there's dominant tree sub dominant tree subordinate trees, and they all play a role. And so when you get rid of all the dominant trees, well, those trees, and this happens in development, so they'll cut down this whole row of trees, and then they'll leave this row of tree standing. And then a couple of years, all the outside trees just start failing. And the reason is, is because the dominant trees that they removed, we're all used to absorbing all the wind energy and the vibrations down the trunk caused them to develop different routes that would respond to those kinds of forces so that they would reinforce the ability for the tree to stay in the ground, or you remove all of that. And now these trees are exposed to elements that are extreme that they've never been exposed to, and haven't had the time to be able to develop a root system that is strong enough to support them in that because think about these that your friends water oak who fell, right, like how many hurricanes have come through Louisiana? 

Angelique
Yeah, it's like sometimes two or three, you know at least up to hurricane strength winds.  he got ripped out of the ground. But it was a tree so

Adam
they don't fall.

Angelique
But now everybody starts going, Oh, I've got to work. Gotta get it removed. It kills me because some beautiful trees have been taking out. I mean, the neighborhood that we moved into in Lafayette was like, the older neighborhood had the biggest tree canopy or the oldest tree canopy. I wanted trees in our yard. I want mature trees and, and we've been here three years. And it's slowly you know, it's like after every hurricane. People just randomly have their trees removed.

Adam
And it's crazy. After the hurricane, they removed the tree that survived the hurricane.

Angelique
Yeah, so it's actually against what you think, you know, they go, Oh my god, I saw a tree like this one fall on the next road. So I'm getting mine removed. And then the shade they've lost the energy efficiency for their home they've lost. Why would you go outside if you don't have trees in South Louisiana.

Adam
Everything too, right? Like, so one tree fell, and everybody reacts to it? Well, the here's a question, one tree fell out of 10. So 90% of the trees survived. Okay, so why did that tree fall? What happened? Did anybody go look to see, hey, was there any indicators that this tree had had routes, its route cuts in order to put in a new concrete slab was there on the tree, were there any indicators that maybe this tree in particular had some wood decay fungus on it, that caused it to be a liability, and it should have been taken out long before the hurricane came?

You know, there's so many things that could be contributing to one of these trees, because it's such a low percentage of trees that fail in the storm events. And then, and then there are times in urban environment where a tree literally has expired. It's useful service life. And we have to understand that dynamic, because we do need to recycle our trees in our urban environment, they're not natural force. But we just don't We don't do that. Right. We don't plan that way. And so all of a sudden, all of our tree removals are reactionary, and, or we hold on to trees for too long, and we don't remove them 15 years ago, like we should have been put in a new tree. And then now, you know, now we have a tree that's 15 years older than it should be, and the new tree doesn't even come close to being able to replace it in time. Yeah, yeah. Whereas Have you done that 15 years ago, and you remove that big tree, you would have a tree? Now that's 15 years old, and decently sizable, you know?

Angelique
Yeah. I wonder about these things. I mean, you know, what we are trying to do, as for, you know, for the landscape professionals is open up these discussions, because I really believe there's a lot of people that are passionate about their niche in the industry.

And, and really, you know, as, let's say, you know, our audience, we're trying to make targeted towards business owners that have that kind of oversee everything from design, construction, maintenance, because we feel like, that's where these business owners can make the most impact, because they're weighing up these things, you know, they're going, " Okay, we have this property, we're gonna design put a design in here.Okay, well, first, you have to assess, just like what you said, is this tree, it's beautiful. But how old? Is it? Is it you know, do we need a plan versus succession? Or do we need, you know, do we need to remove it? Or is it worth saving and moving and protect or protecting the roots? Far construction? And I, I do wonder if do we go too far or not far enough in these assessments? And then, you know, during construction, something else happens or, you know, it progresses through construction and then into maintenance?

Do we ever have those? You know, that balance of decision making, that we need to have? Which is what you're saying, Okay, is there any disease? Okay, how are we going to construct around this? Okay, how are we going to, you know, decide if we need other trees in the area to replace it in a, you know, that's a whole strategy. What's your opinion on how we do this better as an industry? 

Adam
It's difficult, right? I think probably because one of the challenges that we have such an we already have such a solidly existing infrastructure, that it's not like you can start from the beginning. Right, so then how do we do things? How do we, how did you things moving forward? Well, I think I think maybe one place to start is changing the way we do our landscaping in new developments, right? And I'm was looking for a company on LinkedIn that I there in the UK, and I want to say like, it's like blue urban design or something like that. I can't remember what it is. But they install these things called tree cells.

Angelique
The soil cells. Yeah. Well, yeah, there are people doing that in the US.

Adam
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, starting to implement using those as part of your urban planning with trees, I think is really, really smart. You know, because you're basically saying trees are our priority. And so we want big trees. We want healthy trees in our downtown landscapes.

Angelique
Green Blue Urban. They're actually in our issue that just came out [SYNKD South Spring 2023]

Adam
I really liked what those guys are doing. There. I think that they're really really smart in there.  They sent me one of their books. I have that book. 

Angelique
There are other companies doing it as well. But I think you're right. It's giving the tree more space. Yeah, more nutrients and more microbes, and water retention.

Adam
We need to start paying attention to we start paying attention to our soils more, you know, like, you can't ever make any private companies spend more money on their landscaping and trees. But I mean, for crying out loud if if we really are serious about the climate, the climate change, I know that it's really dicey topic, you start seeing climate change, and everyone's like, Oh, you're crazy liberal hippie. It's like, well, I'm, it's actually I vote totally differently than that. But it doesn't change the fact that I've seen change in tech, there's been temperature at least, right? Yeah. So there's, so it's been getting hotter for longer. And the trees are used to that.

We're also using reclaimed water in our landscape instead of potable water. So we're also introducing a water that has higher salinity content in it and higher alkaline content in it. So the can't we're changing the chemistry of our soils. I mean, if we're not paying attention to our soils, and investing into our soils around trees, you know, that's, that's also going to hurt our trees as well. And then, you know, I mean, just conceptually, being willing, for and these this is all really about commercial property owners as being willing to consider that your landscape could look different and it could still be awesome, you know, so maybe your landscape doesn't have to be all these insanely laced out quote, laced out and heavily manicured trees, maybe your landscape could look pretty awesome with some really full, healthy tree canopies. And maybe part of that means as part of the reset when we started getting rid of some of these trees, the new trees that we reinstalled like we prune them for structure and building clearance and that's it and then we hire talented people educated people to make sure that the trees are safe that that structure is continuing to be managed.

Angelique
If their roots, from construction, give their roots more room better soil. But I also think you know, underground anchoring.

Adam
Yeah, I'm not even really totally familiar with with underground anchoring. I heard about it in passing a couple of times. But tell me a little bit more about that sound. Can we do that out here at all?

Angelique
Well, so um, there are are different systems. There are a few, you know, quite a few providers, but the way it works is that you have the root bone and you almost have like guide wires, tamping you know that you tap down into the ground into the subsoil. So deeper roots from so you have maybe guide wires on top of the root bone. And then they go deeper into the soil, then you've even dug into virgin subsoil. And then there's a way to hammer them in, and then get it's like an anchor, you know, you flex you pull a guide wire up a certain way.

I mean, I'm not explaining this very well, but then it it like shoehorns the anchor into place so it can't come out. So again, yeah, what you're doing it's it's more like artificial roots underground, until it grows there. Because one thing that I've I've seen and I don't think I believed it truly, until I saw it happen on my property. But um, you know, you shouldn't use tree stakes if you don't have to, because then the roots don't expand the way they would. And we lived in a really windy part of Scotland. And so I tried to not use Thanks.

Adam
Why didn't use underground anchors?

Angelique
Let's not talk about that. But we had really rocky soil. And it was like, oh my goodness, I don't know it was like granite. You know, it was like you'd like you couldn't use a shovel to dig a hole. You had to use a digger. So I was like, Okay, we'll just get this in the ground, well, we'll stay calm. And, and these trees had been in place for a few years. And I had to stake from one direction because the wind always came from that direction. So I only had stakes on one side. One day, the wind changed the direction, and the tree fell over, it had been planted there for three or four years was growing, looked healthy. I then I dug it on, you wouldn't believe the roots and how they were distributed. It was like 180 degrees, a root system. On the other side, barely any root system. Yeah. And it's because I had to have it staked and I should have used the underground anchors. 

Adam
It starts is actually getting good trees from the nursery too. That's actually another huge problem. Because if you see the trees in the nursery, they top them, and then they live them all the way up. So you get this skinny pole with this tuft at the top, and it's like, and then the winner takes all the lower branching is gone. You know, so I think nurseries keeping lower branching and all the trees is actually really, really important.

Stop manicuring your tree so heavily in the in the nurseries. You know, we add Gilman talks a lot about the impacts of the negative impacts that long term containerization has in trees, you know, so when you treat them in a container for too long, yeah, they get certainly in girdling roots, and they don't ever establish. So if you're going to plant trees, then and you're going to buy container trees. Then, if you're planning on using buying container trees, then when you plant them in the ground, you need to score the roots so that you cut off the girdling. So the roots collateralize as they're establishing, but it's all these kinds of practices that so many different parties need to play that the idea of change is just, you know, it's just like, smash that ship, you know, to get to go in the right direction. There's so many parties that play different parts, you know, and it's all about where the money is going.

Angelique
Even the mulching, like, oh, I have been to about five new developments. And when I say new, I mean five years. And I was like, oh my goodness, all these trees are dying, because they have a foot of mulch. trunk, like, and you can't even tell where the root flare is. And it just the fact that we're not planting them at the right depths, we're probably not giving them enough soil, we're probably not staking them so that they survive, you know, or it's is frustrating to me, because I'm seeing this, and it's my industry that I love so much. And we can do so much good. And if we're not showing people the right way, nobody even knows. And then it's people wasting money on trees, and it's, you know, trees slowly dying all around us even newly planted ones?

Angelique
Well, I think we can, we can only start with what we know. It [podcast] should be a series of how decision makers and leaders in our industry need to sit up and take notice of the downward spiral of what we're doing to trees.

Adam
Your goal in order to do that is you've got to be able to find somebody who is, you know, an asset manager or somebody who owns some commercial real estate or some of these, you know, multi-family housing companies and be able to talk to somebody who is in the purchasing department or somebody who is who is a decision maker at a very high level and who really does want to see change and is really wanting to impact you know, the climate, air quality, greener communities, carbon sequestering, etc, somebody who's really really doing the work in that area and and has a pretty impressive footprint. If you can find that person may get him on the show. I mean, that's certainly something that's certainly a great place to start somebody who's influential in that market.

We just need the people with the money to be seeing their trees is valuable. And until the people with the money, see their trees is valuable and demand that their trees are cared for a certain way. It's just not going to happen. And that's, that's the most frustrating part. Because as a service provider, I can only do what somebody will pay me to do. You know, outside of that I can be on a podcast, I can write a blog article, I could write a book, but until it pays people to do the work and cares. And their money is spent to illustrate that. It's just going to be us fighting the fight. You know.

Angelique
We've got to start somewhere.