Strengthen and stabilize your valuable trees with our tree bracing and cabling services. This preventative approach is ideal for trees with structural weaknesses, reducing the risk of damage from storms or heavy winds.
Tree Bracing and Cabling Questions
What Hot Springs and Garland County homeowners ask before deciding whether a tree can be kept.
What do bracing and cabling actually do?
They add mechanical support to a tree that has a structural weakness but is otherwise worth keeping. Cabling uses flexible cable installed high in the canopy to limit how far two leaders or heavy limbs can move away from each other in wind. Bracing uses threaded rods through the wood itself, usually at a split or a weak union, to hold the parts together. Cabling reduces the load. Bracing resists the split directly. Trees with a co-dominant trunk, a narrow included-bark union, or a heavy horizontal limb over something valuable are the usual candidates.
Can cabling save a tree that is already damaged?
Often, and that is the point of doing it. A tree with a partial split, a cracked union, or storm-loosened leaders can frequently be stabilized and kept rather than removed, especially a mature shade tree that would take decades to replace. What it cannot do is fix decay. If the wood around the union is hollow or rotten, there is nothing sound for a cable or a rod to anchor into, and support hardware installed into bad wood gives false confidence. The honest answer comes from looking at the tree, which is what the free estimate is for.
Bracing or removal: how do you decide?
Three things: what the tree is worth to you, what is underneath it, and whether the sound wood is there to work with. A mature oak shading the house, with solid wood around the defect and a repairable union, is a good candidate for support. A declining tree with extensive decay, hanging over a bedroom, is a removal conversation, because hardware does not make rotten wood strong. We will give you the straight version rather than the one that sells the bigger job.
How long does a cable system last, and does it need attention?
Support hardware is not install-and-forget. Cables and braces should be looked at about once a year, and after any major storm, because the tree keeps growing around the hardware and the loading changes as the canopy fills in. Systems can serve for many years when they are inspected and adjusted, but a cable nobody has looked at in a decade is doing an unknown job. We check existing hardware as part of routine visits.
Does a cabled tree still need trimming?
Usually yes, and the two work together. Reducing the weight and wind sail on the supported limbs takes load off the hardware, which is why trimming and pruning is often recommended alongside a cable installation rather than instead of it.
What does an installation visit look like?
Owner Paul Clower assesses the defect and the surrounding wood first, then explains what hardware we would install and where. Installation is done from the canopy and takes a few hours for most residential trees. Clower Tree Service is family owned, bonded and insured, and serves Hot Springs, Hot Springs Village, and Garland County. Call 501-538-1606 for a free estimate, or see our full range of tree services.