I Get Called for Second Opinions on Tree Removal. Here's What I Actually Find.
"The tree is going to fall on your house and hurt somebody inside."
That is what a tree removal service told one of my clients about the red oak in their yard.
Once a homeowner hears something like that, it sticks. It sets a narrative that is hard to overcome, and no client should hear it about their tree unless the tree has truly earned it.
I get called for second opinions after statements like that one. Here are 3 of them, and what I actually found.
The red oak that was fine.
I met the client at their home in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, and they relayed what they had been told.
Then I inspected the tree. It had a slight lean, nothing severe, with no evidence of any defects. The tree was healthy. It was alive, and it did not need to be removed.
My recommendation: retain the tree and re-inspect it in 2 years.
That is the entire case. A healthy red oak, a frightening sentence, and a family who nearly paid thousands of dollars to remove a tree that needed nothing at all.
The oak that was lost.
This one runs the other direction, and it is the one that stays with me.
A client in Jefferson County had a very large, mature oak. The tree lost a big diameter limb, and because of its proximity to the home, the limb fell very close and caused real concern. They called a tree removal service about taking the tree down.
I spoke with the client by phone. They were shaken, and I understood why. They had children, and a big limb had just landed near the house.
There were options short of removal. On the phone, I mentioned pruning the tree to lighten the end weight of the main branches, which reduces the likelihood of branch failure.
I did not press the issue. The fear had already done its work, and I never inspected the tree in person. The whole tree came down.
I understand the concern a tree that size creates next to a home with children in it. What disappoints me is that removal was automatically the first option. That was a prominent tree behind their home, and it will not be replaced in their lifetime.
When you call a tree removal service, that is the service you get.
The oak nobody connected to the lawn.
The third case involved no scare and no salesman. A client in the Birmingham area called me because their mature oak looked sick. It had dying branch tips and was slow to come out of dormancy in the spring, and they could not figure out why.
The cause was in the grass. The oak grew near the lawn, so its roots had grown out into the lawn.
A lawn care company had been spraying the lawn for weed control, and the herbicide they used was labeled to kill oak tree saplings. The tree's roots were being damaged by that herbicide.
The homeowners would likely never have connected those dots, and there is no reason they should. The label talks about turf grass, and the damage shows up high in the canopy. Nothing about a lawn treatment looks like a tree problem.
My recommendations: get with the lawn care company so that herbicide is never applied to the turf again. Monitor the tree for any further damage this year. Re-inspect next spring, after the leaves emerge from dormancy.
What these 3 cases have in common.
In each case, the tree couldn't speak for itself, and the person speaking for it either had something to sell or nothing to go on.
Listening to a tree removal service's recommendation about removing a tree that's not stone dead, or obviously almost dead, is a conflict of interest.
It's easy to stand there and tell someone a tree needs to be removed, and it's a final decision: they don't get that tree back. It's gone. The risk is removed.
It's much harder to put eyes on a tree, diagnose the problems, explain what's wrong with the tree (if anything), and explain why you should retain and monitor it versus remove it.
It's a lot easier to say, "Remove the tree." They get paid for it. They cut it down, remove it, and leave. After that, most of the evidence of whether it needed to come down leaves on the truck.
A second opinion from someone who does not remove trees changes that. I have no financial interest in what happens to your tree, so the answer you get is the answer the tree earned. Sometimes that answer is removal. In my field experience, I see many trees removed unnecessarily, and a tree removal service shouldn't be the final source for such an important decision.
Common questions
Should I get a second opinion before removing a tree?
If the tree is large, mature, or matters to you, yes. Removal is permanent, and a mature tree will not be replaced in your lifetime. If you want to know what I inspect for, I wrote about it in Is My Tree Going to Fail? 4 Important Signs That I Look for That You Don't.
What does a second opinion cost?
My consultation is $375 in the Birmingham area and covers up to 2 trees. The full breakdown is in What Does a Tree Assessment Cost?
Who should give the second opinion?
Someone with no financial interest in the removal, and someone whose credentials you can verify. Anyone can print certified arborist on a truck door. ISA's directory at certificates.directory.isa-arbor.com tells you whether it is true, and it takes less than a minute.
If someone has told you your tree has to come down, call me at 205-854-3676 before the saw arrives.
A word of warning about what you're reading online.
The internet is now flooded with tree care articles that were never written by anyone who has actually stood under a tree. They are generated by AI, assembled from scraps of other articles that were themselves assembled from scraps. The information sounds authoritative. It is polished, confident, and generic, and it has never inspected a single tree. I call it white noise.
Here is the problem: your tree is not generic. A warning sign that means very little on a healthy young oak in sandy soil can mean everything on a mature tree sitting in our Birmingham clay and rock. No article knows which one you have.
Everything I write here comes from over 10,000 trees inspected with my own eyes and hands, and even then, I will not diagnose your tree from a webpage, a photo, or a phone call. Neither can an AI that has inspected exactly zero trees.
Use what you read online, including my own articles, as education, not as a diagnosis. When it comes time for a real answer about a real tree, there is no substitute for a trained, credentialed professional standing in your yard.
David W. Boggan is an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, ISA Certified Arborist Utility Specialist, and ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualified, and a consulting arborist serving Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, Homewood, Hoover, and the greater Birmingham area. He helps trees and does not cut them down. Learn more at alabama-arborist.com.
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