Successful mature tree retention programs yield high value environmental service returns; large programs start small, so start designing today!
Universities, municipalities, and arborist service providers are usually tasked with the maintenance and management of large populations of trees, shrubs, and other plants – including turf grass. Trees and greenspaces provide significant and quantifiable services such as storm water mitigation, cooling cost reduction, air filtration, and human stress reduction, just to name a very few.
Reactive maintenance is usually ineffective for mature tree retention; removals are more costly than proactive care; it takes decades for newly planted trees to replace mature tree benefits and services.
What is a PHC Program?
PHC programs typically utilize proactive maintenance and regular monitoring to achieve plant health, appearance, and structural goals. These programs should include an action threshold; a point at which physical intervention is triggered to correct damage from abiotic or biotic causal agents. Modern programs focus on preventative care through enhanced plant vitality in an effort to reduce the use of more aggressive chemical controls.
Cost Savings
I served as the PHC program designer and manager as a consultant to Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) campus from 2012-2024 focusing primarliy on the needs of just over 3,000 of the nearly 14,000 tree inventory. Most of these were veteran trees – large, mature, and overmature specimens that provided significant urban forest benefits and environmental services. Working with the IUB landscape services director I developed and grew a proactive and prioritized care program that has saved the university hundreds of thousands of dollars in tree removal costs while retaining the high value of urban forest services provided by the mature tree community.
One component of the program alone saved $250k while retaining the full value of tree related services for over a decade.
Large PHC programs start small. Contact Arc to start your program design.