National Arborists
Your online resource for local tree service companies & tree care information.

The arborists at Sims Tree Health Specialists have been maintaining and saving trees since 1972. Our Oroville location allows us to conveniently service all of Butte County, from Magalia to Chico, south to Palermo, and all points in between. We also provide tree service to Placer and El Dorado Counties from our Oroville location.

Our tree service offers a number of tree care services to maintain your trees and shrubs in the best condition possible. We can diagnose disease and insect pests on trees and shrubs and provide recommendations to help sick trees. Additionally, we offer all manner of tree consulting services. Our services include:

• Tree diagnosis
• Girdling root removal
• Plant health monitoring
• Root stimulant fertilization
• Air Spade root excavation
• Tree and shrub fertilization
• Preservation of historic trees
• Soil enhancement treatments
• Written tree consultation reports
• Helping construction damaged trees
• Certified organic insect and mite control
• Tree spraying for disease and insect pests
• Tree monitoring during construction projects
• Tree injections for disease and insect control
• Pre-construction recommendations for saving trees

Our tree services are available throughout Butte County, including the cities of:

• Biggs, CA
• Chico, CA
• Concow, CA
• Durham, CA
• Gridley, CA
• Magalia, CA
• Oroville, CA
• Palermo, CA
• Paradise, CA
• South Oroville, CA
• Thermalito, CA

The arborists at our tree service stay up to date on the latest trends and techniques in the tree care industry through our connection and membership in the following organizations:

• The International Society of Arboriculture
• Inland Urban Forestry Council
• Street Tree Seminar
• American Horticultural Society
• California Oak Foundation
• LA Mycological Society
• Palm Society of Southern California
• Arbor Day Foundation
• American Public Garden Association

Our tree service employs arborists with a wide diversity of educational backgrounds and work history experiences, including:

• ISA Certified Arborists
• An ISA Board Certified Master Arborist
• A California Certified Urban Forester
• California Licensed Agricultural Advisers
• California Licensed Agricultural Applicators
• Certified Wildlife Protectors
• California Licensed Structural Operators

TREE DIAGNOSIS

The first step in setting up a maintenance plan for your landscape or helping a sick tree recover is to perform a thorough tree diagnosis. During the initial inspection of your property our arborists will look for trees and shrubs that are susceptible to common insect pests or tree diseases found in Butte County. Our recommended tree maintenance program may include any combination of tree spraying, tree fertilizing, tree injections, or root system enhancements.

While most of our tree maintenance work involves taking care of entire landscapes, we are often called out to look at a single tree or shrub on a property that doesn't look healthy. If you have a tree or shrub that has stunted growth, wilting leaves, off-color leaves, brown leaves, or an unusual number of dead branches, give us a call. The sooner we can intervene in controlling disease or insect pests the better the chances are of saving your tree or shrub.

GIRDLING ROOT REMOVAL

Sometimes when there are stunted leaves on a tree or a large number of dead branches on one side of a tree, it might not have anything to do with a disease or insect pest. We find a lot of trees in Durham landscapes that have girdling roots. This is a condition where a tree root grows around, or next to, the tree trunk instead of growing away from the tree trunk. Trees grown in containers are often used in Durham landscapes, and container-grown trees are very prone to forming girdling roots. When roots reach the container wall they start to grow in a circle around the container. After being in the ground several years the tree trunk and girdling root increase in diameter until the root starts constricting the trunk of the tree.

Our arborists remove girdling roots with the use of a tool called an Air Spade. This tool uses pressurized air to excavate soil around the trunk of the tree without damaging delicate feeder roots. With the soil removed our arborist can see, and remove if necessary, any girdling roots. If it's necessary to remove girdling roots on your tree it is highly recommended to fertilize the tree to maintain the health of the tree and compensate for the root loss from severing the girdling root.

TREE AND SHRUB FERTILIZATION

Paradise, CA is not always a paradise for our landscape trees and shrubs. The fact is urban trees and shrubs face many more stress factors than forest trees. Landscape plants are not always planted in the best sites, are planted in compacted soils, have roots cut or damaged, or are damaged by lawn mowing equipment. Tree and shrub fertilization can go a long way to maintaining the overall health of your landscape plants by assuring that nutrients are available when the plants need them.

While standard tree and shrub fertilization is adequate for most landscape plants in Paradise, some trees need a little extra help. We are one of the few tree services in Butte County that offer other soil enhancement treatments. We can include root stimulant additives into our tree fertilization program such as beneficial soil fungi or rhizobacteria to magnify the effects of our tree fertilization.


HELPING CONSTRUCTION DAMAGED TREES

It's all too common for us to be called out to Chico because trees are looking sick after some type of construction work was done. We see construction damage to trees after new houses are built, an addition is put on a house, a new driveway or patio is installed, or any number of other construction activities that cause damage to tree roots. First and foremost, we will let you know if it is possible to save a tree after construction work is done. If it looks like we can save your tree we may recommend one or more of the following tree services:

• Tree fertilization
• Root-stimulant fertilization
• Radial trenching
• Vertical mulching
• Tree spraying
• Soil grade restoration
• Tree trunk injections

The services necessary to save your construction damaged tree depend on the health of the tree, the age of the tree, the extent of the root damage, and the tree species. Each situation is unique, so the combination of tree-saving recommendations is specific to your tree.

TREE DISEASE AND INSECT PEST CONTROL

One of the most common tree services we perform is spraying trees for disease or insect control. Our arborists are familiar with all the common disease and insect pests in Magalia. Another technique our tree service offers for controlling certain disease or insect pests is trunk injections. Each method of controlling disease or insect pests, tree spraying or tree trunk injections, has its good and bad points. Our arborists will advise you on which technique is best for your particular tree.

TREE CONSULTING

Because of the extensive background of our arborists, our tree service has been called upon to do a variety of tree consultations. Our tree consulting services are often used for:

• Pre-construction plans to save existing trees
• Developing maintenance plans for historic trees
• Remediation for construction damaged trees
• Monitoring trees during construction projects
• Tree valuation reports
• Tree surveys

Whatever type of tree consulting you are in need of our tree service has probably already done it, or has the ability to complete it for you. We offer a variety of written tree consulting reports, depending on the particular needs of your project.