Tree Care Budgeting: A Property Manager's Guide to Cost-Effective Tree Maintenance

Have you counted the trees on your commercial property lately? Do you have 10? 25? 100? 

If you started counting at lunch and now the sun’s going down, you can really use some tree care budgeting tips.

All those stunning crape myrtles, majestic oaks and fiery red maples come with dollar signs. 

Your trees are probably the biggest landscape investment you have.  And they need occasional maintenance to stay healthy and thriving — and to keep your property safe. 

Do you have a budget plan for commercial tree services? You need one. 

Let's walk through some commercial tree care strategies so you don’t end up with unpleasant budget surprises.

Commercial Tree Services: Plan for Your Trees’ Needs

Once you plant a tree, it’s easy to kind of forget about it. Just leave it alone and watch it grow, right? 

Not exactly. Trees need pruning. Pruning a tree throughout its lifetime will maintain its nice shape and health — and keep it from becoming a costly danger on your property. 

Many properties in Maryland, Virginia, and DC have trees that are 10, 20, 40, even 60 years old, towering 30 or 40 feet tall. 

That means dead or dying branches that can tumble, causing significant damage. Routine commercial tree pruning takes those dangerous branches out before they fall. 

Most landscape maintenance contracts don’t include routine care for trees taller than 12 feet. That’s what landscaping crews can reach from the ground with pole pruners or a pole saw.

If crews have to climb a ladder or use a bucket truck, that requires a different level of insurance coverage. A commercial tree service specializes in that. Level Green partners with trusted area tree companies to provide commercial tree services in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. 

But what if you have 50 or 100 trees on your commercial property? Yikes. Pruning them all can get costly. So Level Green account managers work with customers to create a cost-effective tree maintenance plan and budget.

Commercial Tree Care Costs: Assessing Needs

What’s going on out there with your five, 10, or 100 trees? There are three maintenance categories:

1. Immediate Needs

Are there any emergencies that need immediate attention? That includes large dead branches close to buildings, sidewalks, or parking lots that could topple at any time. Or commercial tree removal for dead trees that can’t be saved. Those crucial needs should be addressed right away.

2. Problems That Can Wait

Maybe you have a tree on your property with dead branches that need to be removed, but it’s out in a field, away from pedestrians, cars or structures. That’s not as serious as if the tree is in a parking lot or next to a sidewalk. Commercial tree services for that can wait a bit.

3. Routine Maintenance

All trees need occasional pruning. And many benefit from raising their canopies — pruning lower branches or thinning branches to let more sunlight through.

Sometimes that’s not just to help the tree, but to impact what’s underneath it.

Have you noticed your turf looked great 20 years ago, but now it looks terrible?

Your trees were newly planted then, and pretty small. Now they’re bigger and they’re shading the grass. You need to open up the tree canopies so sunlight can come through. Commercial tree services to the rescue. Have you budgeted for that?

Budgeting for Cost-effective Tree Maintenance

You need a separate component of your budget to manage trees, just like you would for your roof or your lawn. We can help you make a plan.

Maybe you have 100 trees that are 15 years old. Over the next five years we’ll prune 20 trees a year. That makes the cost much more manageable than waiting five years and pruning 100 trees at once.

Spend Now, Save Later

If you maintain your trees over time, that should reduce your commercial tree service costs in the long run. You won’t be forced to remove several trees in an emergency situation.

If a large tree falls on your property and you need emergency commercial tree removal on a weekend, that’s really expensive. If a tree falls on a car, that becomes an insurance and liability issue.

Many municipalities require a certain number of trees on properties. If you lose one, you have to replace it. It’s more expensive to replace a tree than to maintain it to be healthy.

In DC it can take several months to get approval to remove a dead tree. Meanwhile, you have a dead tree in front of your property. That’s not a great look.

Healthy trees make an aesthetic difference that improves your property value. You don’t want several half-dead oaks on your property.

Commercial Tree Care Costs: Extra Help for Urban Trees

City trees have extra needs. It’s tough out there. Summer heat. Not much water. Some city trees are planted in a 5 by 5 planter box.

Some properties just replace their trees every five or 10 years. That’s not smart tree care budgeting. With a little extra help they can stay healthy. Deep root fertilization can help them grow in a difficult urban environment.

Deep root tree fertilization injects nutrients directly deep into the soil, rather than spreading fertilizer over the top.

By injecting the fertilizer with high pressure, the nutrients can reach the deepest tree roots fast, feeding your tree from the roots up.

The tree gets an immediate nutrition boost. Then, over time, the nutrients make their way to the rest of the tree, making it healthier and more vibrant.

Plan Your Commercial Tree Care Budgeting with Level Green

It’s easy to take trees for granted. You look up, and there they are, offering shade for your lunchtime sandwich munching, spectacular spring flowers for that Instagram selfie, a leafy home for that cute squirrel you sort of think of as a pet. 

Make sure they’re always there, with a solid plan and budget for commercial tree service. 

If you’re not already a Level Green Landscaping client, we’d love to add you to our growing list of happy customers. Our focus is on commercial properties like offices, mixed-use sites, HOAs, municipalities and institutions in Maryland, Washington DC and parts of Virginia.

Contact us at 202-544-0968. You can also request a free consultation online to meet with us one-on-one.

We’d love to hear from you.