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Tree care important for safety - The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA Page 3 of 5 <br /> Douglas firs were the predominant victims of the storm in <br /> Eugene, partly because they were saturated with water and <br /> their branches caught more wind than bare leaf trees, said <br /> Mark Snyder, urban forester for the city of Eugene. <br /> Every felled fir that Snyder saw had root rot. It likely <br /> developed from a combination of mechanical damage - <br /> construction, landscaping, irrigation installation - and summer <br /> watering, he said. <br /> The city each year removes about 150 to 200 hazard trees, <br /> mostly along streets. Through several city programs, more <br /> than 1,000 trees are planted each year to replace trees that <br /> have been removed or to landscape new developments. <br /> The hazard trees seminar is funded in part by a $15,000 grant <br /> from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in response <br /> to last year's windstorm. The materials will be posted on the <br /> Internet - www.pnwisa.org - for homeowners and others who <br /> work around trees. <br /> Property owners seem more interested in the health of their <br /> trees since the February storm, said Eugene arborist Harry <br /> Leuallen. <br /> "I've gotten a lot of calls from people worried about their trees <br /> for one reason or another," Leuallen said. "But a lot of people <br /> are ignorant about what things in trees are hazardous. They <br /> will call and they have no idea if their tree is hazardous or <br /> not." <br /> Some of the signs that a tree may be in trouble include open <br /> cracks in the crotches between limbs or stems; decay on the <br /> trunk or large limbs; raised ground around the trunk; <br /> excessive weight on the ends of branches from poor pruning; <br /> and mechanical injuries. <br /> Another big mistake people make is to top a tree - literally lop <br /> off its top - in hopes of controlling the growth, Leuallen said. <br /> "It's not always fatal, but it certainly causes a tree that could <br /> have been pruned and made nice to become a total aberration, <br /> with the potential to be unsafe," he said. <br /> The Eugene Water & Electric Board used to top trees under <br /> power lines but stopped the practice around 1990, spokesman <br /> Marty Douglass said. <br /> "Now we do directional pruning, and we try to be as least <br /> invasive on the tree as possible," Douglass said. <br /> HAZARD TREES SEMINARS <br /> http://www.registerguard.com/news/2003/01/04/1b.cr.hazardtrees.0104.html 1/8/03 <br />