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Hi! This is Blair Glenn of Saratoga Tree Service. I am an ISA Certified Arborist.

The topic that I want to talk about here is what happens when you put cement over a cavity or a wound on a tree?

This particular limb has also been cabled twice, one old one and the secondary one to reinforce it because it was recognize that the cavity was a weakness on the tree.

There is two locations, one cable goes a little bit lower and it is very slack in the upper cable is supporting a lot of the weight of this limb.

In years past, it was a recognize procedure that when there was a cavity in the wound, cement was often filled in as what they believe a way of keeping the water out and keeping it from decaying.

When I showed up at this location today, I saw that it was cracking underneath and I tapped on it, it was a very thin coating of cement and it became very apparent that the cement was solid on the outside and underneath, the decay continued to become a problem.

Hid underneath that surface of concrete is a pocket of decay and there is a fungal organism growing in there that is a good indicator of just how extensive the decay has spread. This fungus is actually living off of dead and decaying wood and was not visible until I pride the surface off.

Let us just close up of one of those fungal brackets.

If I had not broken off the surface of this white concrete, it would have appeared to have been solid and in many cases when I see this old concreted over surfaces, I can only guess that was underneath. In this case, it was so thin. It was very easy to break it open.

But it is been now recognize that cement is not a good thing to do in it, it only hides the problems and in some cases it actually exasturbate the problems.

In this particular instance had I not broken off the cement?

This might not have been recognized and a failure could have resulted just from ignorance.

Thank you for taking the time to view this brief presentation.

Once again my name is Blair Glenn. I am an ISA Certified Arborist.

Hi! This is Blair Glenn of Saratoga Tree Service. I am an ISA Certified Arborist. The topic that I want to talk about here is what happens when you put cement over a cavity or a wound on a tree? This particular limb has also been cabled twice, one old one and... click to read more