Northern Arborists

Northern Arborists has been in business since 1980, with our home base located in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, just east of St. Paul. We provide year-round tree maintenance services with a focus on cultural practices that maximize the health and beauty of your trees. Our staff are educated, experienced, and International Society of Arboriculture certified arborists. We are fully licensed and insured and primarily service residential properties.

Our goal is to promote and educate our customers in responsible and quality tree care. We prefer to maintain ongoing relationships with our clients, ensuring continuous tree care to ensure lasting health and beauty for your trees. If you choose Northern Arborists, you can expect professional services from qualified staff. Our staff attend workshops, seminars, and conferences regularly to stay current in arboricultural practices and techniques. We follow ANSI A300 Pruning Standards and ANSI Z1331.1 Safety Standards.

Our Services

We offer a variety of services to meet your tree care needs. Our services include rope and saddle climbing, trimming, rigging, bracing, tree selection and planting, shrub maintenance, root collar inspections, consultation, and evaluations. We also provide free estimates for our services.

Rope and Saddle Climbing

This technique allows more versatility and precision not available when trimming with a bucket. No spikes are ever used when trimming. Climbers are able to access the crown of the tree and hard to reach areas without damage to lawns typically caused by heavy equipment. Proper climbing techniques assure your trees will be trimmed to the highest standards and in the safest manner.

Trimming

There are many aspects to trimming, depending on your goals: Maintenance of mature trees for their health consists primarily of the removal of dead, dying and diseased limbs referred to as crown-cleaning. Clearance of houses, wires, walkways, driveways and sight lines (vista pruning) consists of raising, heading, directional, or subordination pruning. These are cuts that respect the defense zones and architectural integrity of the tree. Structuring of trees, especially young trees, is important to ensure the development of a safe, low-maintenance tree in the future. This can consist of the removal of a competing lead, included bark unions and crossing limbs. Thinning is the removal of live material done to maintain the even distribution of branches. It is generally a smaller part of the trimming process and is done in such a way as not to hinder the health of the tree.

Rigging

Our arborists are knowledgeable in rigging techniques so we are able to remove branches without impact to your home and landscape.

Bracing and Cabling

Bracing is used to add support to weaker structures in trees where trimming alone is not an option. Our preference is to use non-static or dynamic systems (i.e. Guardian Giant). These systems are non-invasive (no holes to drill) and allow for normal movement in the crown, which preserves the strength of the trunk or limbs involved. There are still situations where the more traditional static/steel cabling systems are appropriate.

Tree Selection and Planting

We provide assistance in selecting trees and woody shrubs that are best suited for the site and conditions. Our planting specifications include: Proper planting depth - root flare at or above soil line - to ensure maximum tree vigor and health and to eliminate stem girdling roots; Containers or wire-burlap removed; roots pruned as needed; A good "growing site" is constructed and wood chip mulch is added leaving the root flare exposed; A one year guarantee that includes materials and labor, if proper care has been followed.