American Tree care

This has been an outstanding company in the past and I have used them twice previously to thin out the canape of the numerous trees in my yard. Every tree came through Hurricane Ike just fine with their tree trimming style. Mike is still the point man but he has a new partner who's crew does the work called Gardner's Ground Hogging. They are very polite, Ira Gardner is very knowledgeable about trees and has 18 years experience in the tree trimming business. He would make an outstanding arborist for a city because he seems to only know how to trim trees one way and to him any other way of tree trimming is WRONG. I have a big, beautiful water oak in my front yard, it is a happy tree, or it was until this past Wednesday, it's problem was that it was so heavily laden with acorns that large branches from the center of the tree were breaking off and I wanted the tree thinned out a little so It would stop loosing branches. I LIKE to see Oak trees in their natural form NOT the way they are trimmed along the streets of our cities and towns. There is a reason for that kind of trimming - it provides for a free flow of traffic. I have maintained the original shape of my tree and American Tree Care has alway provided me with that service and done an excellent job. Until this week. I explained to Ira and his crew what I wanted; that I wanted the tree thinned out because the heavily landen branches were breaking off, I did this repeatedly. I explained I wanted to keep the original shape of my tree and that I didn't want an oak tree that looked like an elm tree and then I went about my business. When I checked to see what was happening a short time later the entire center of my tree had been stripped out, not a branch less than 2 inches to be seen. But the thinning of the outer branches had not be touched. I decided to stay and micro manage the job but things only got worse. I have a lower branch on that tree which is at the right height for a child's swing or for hanging holiday decorations on. It was well over head and was critical to me that it remain in place, removing it would drasticly affect to shape of the tree. Before I knew it Ira and his crew had just about stripped that entire long limb of all but a few branches at the very end. I am convinced had I not been carefully watching them they were prepared to simply lop this branch off. Their idea of thinning out the tree was VASTLY different then mine - instead of working at the ends of the branches and wisely thinning those to reduce the weight they would remove the entire branch from the main limb. This was a very fast way of getting the work done but it also drastically altered the look of the tree. The lower half of my tree is bare of all original two inch wide branches. It LOOKS AWFUL. It will take more then a decade to restore this tree to it's former beauty. To say I am NOT HAPPY is an understatement. I finally told them what they were doing to my tree wasn't working for me as the tree became stripped of more and more branches and the ends of the remaining branches were still heavily laden with acorns. Mike was called out and even he commented the center of the tree was and quot;certainly openand quot;. If you are a repeat customer for this company be aware that it has a new crew and they aren't like the ones in the past. They have one and only one way of trimming a tree which amounts to ripping out the interior branches and shaping it to look like a tree along the boulvard. If you have other plans for your tree that does not include this style of trimming - plan to take the day off from work and monitor their every cut or you will have a tree that bears no resemblance to the one you left before you went to work.

Came over soon after I called for an estimate. Gave the best price by far. Had his crew in the next morning and they took care of it in a couple of hours.

I will use them again in the future if I need to.