Like many other things in North Carolina, you can call yourself a tree surgeon without having attended tree medical school or ever having operated on a tree, so we had to do quite a bit of digging to find a qualified tree surgeon.
Our Oak tree is just a baby at 140 years old, but it was infested to tree boars and some type of fungus. We are getting emergency tree-age for it, and we will also re-stimulate the root system by successive fertilization. The cost is just under $3,000 but it’s worth it because buying a replacement tree costs over $20,000 and moving a huge tree in to replace it costs $120,000.
The tree surgeon says that resorts and places like Disney World move super-huge trees all-the-time, so there technology is there. The root system spreads hundreds of feet from the trunk, so we have to divert a road so that it does not damage the roots.
The prognosis is dodgy and the tree surgeon says that we could spend all of the cash and the poor tree could still die. But he recommended it, and this tree still has 200+ years to live if it makes it, so off we go, it’s part of our “no tree left behind” program!