Rich Wiland, district manager from Davey’s Naples/Fort Myers, Florida, office talks about preparing for hurricane and storm season, planting trees in Florida and his background.
In this episode we cover:
To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.
To learn more about how to reduce storm damage, read our blog, How Does Tree Pruning Reduce Storm Damage.
To learn more about palm trees after hurricanes, read our blog, What to do About Palm Tree Hurricane Damage.
To learn more about cleaning up your yard after a storm, read our blog, Step-By-Step: How to Clean Up the Yard and Trees After a Storm.
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company
Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!
Rich Wiland, district manager from Davey’s Naples/Fort Myers, Florida, office talks about preparing for hurricane and storm season, planting trees in Florida and his background.
In this episode we cover:
To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.
To learn more about how to reduce storm damage, read our blog, How Does Tree Pruning Reduce Storm Damage.
To learn more about palm trees after hurricanes, read our blog, What to do About Palm Tree Hurricane Damage.
To learn more about cleaning up your yard after a storm, read our blog, Step-By-Step: How to Clean Up the Yard and Trees After a Storm.
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company
Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!
Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davy Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer.
I'm joined this week by Rich Wiland. He's a district manager for the Davy Tree Expert Company in Naples, Florida. Oh, that sounds nice, but we're going to be talking about hurricane and severe storm preparation. Rich, how are you doing?
Rich Wiland: Good, thank you. Yourself?
Doug: Doing great. Up here in the north, I'm in Pittsburgh, we're at the end of our severe storm season, but September can be a tough one for you down in Florida, right?
Rich: Yes, definitely. September is pretty much our peak season for hurricanes down here.
Doug: What's done on a property beforehand? I know that's got to go be a big part of getting ready for hurricane season.
Rich: Yes, definitely. Preventative-wise, have a certified arborist come up to your property and look for weak branches or V-shaped limbs that you can cable before high winds or a storm comes. Look for proper pruning, crossing rubbing branches, heavy end weight on a limb that you could maybe reduce to help it from breaking. Another thing is thinning out a tree is good. I always like to say it's like a sail, and you don't want it to be like a sailboat. If you put some holes, thin it out a little bit so that you can see the sky, that means the wind can get through it and not push it over with some high winds.
Doug: What has the storm season been like for you so far?
Rich: This year so far, so good. I think it was on record, August, there was no named storms first time in I think 30 years. We got lucky so far.
Doug: Yes, that's got to go be a good feeling. I wonder what it's like for you to watch these storms coming. How long have you been watching these storms coming to Florida?
Rich: I've been down here in Naples for about 13 years. I'm from up north originally, and you see them growing up and you watch the news a little bit and it's sort of interesting, but then when you're down here and you see them come off Africa and they start to form, definitely it keeps you on your toes. You watch it constantly and see if it shifts or where it's going, how big it's coming, and then as it gets closer, definitely it gets a little more worrisome.
Doug: It seems so unpredictable. Again, I'm watching it like you used to watch it from up here and never knowing if it's going to hit in the strength that they think it's going or where it's going to land. All that sort of thing has got to go be a little worrisome for somebody who works on trees.
Rich: Right. With Irma, that was the last big one we had down here. I remember when it got within a day, two days of it hitting, they kept saying, "East Coast, West Coast, East Coast, West Coast." It was sort of 50-50 and then of course it went up our coast, the West Coast. I think either way we would have gotten some damage, but it hitting just South of Naples, definitely, that's like the worst spot for us to have it hit.
Doug: When something like that happens, what does that mean for you and your team?
Rich: Making sure we're prepared is the biggest thing, with fuel, all the trucks running and running properly, making sure you have enough tools, chainsaws, oil, everything in advance ready so that when it does hit, that you're ready to go.
Doug: What do you do as far as fuel is concerned if there's no power? You have a generator pumping fuel, or how would you get fuel if there's no power for two or three days?
Rich: We try to keep enough on hand, make sure we fill the trucks up prior to it hitting. That way you got, at least, a couple of days of fuel in your truck where you don't have to use the gas station.
Doug: Yes, that makes sense. I was just wondering. In that situation, how long was it that the basic big area was without power? Was it that long, or how long was it?
Rich: Without power, it was weeks, but the good thing is we had running water. When you're sleeping and you're sweating, you can at least jump in the shower and cool off, which was one of the big things that we had down here that helped us.
Doug: Then do other people from Davey come down there or do you guys handle everything when there is a bad storm?
Rich: Yes, take Irma for instance, that was a big one. Our office in Naples here, we had I think about 85 employees come down from different locations, from St. Louis to Ohio, Carolinas, Texas, and they all pitched in to help.
Doug: Wow. Tell me a little bit about how you got into this as your job.
Rich: Growing up, I never knew what I wanted to do. The summer jobs I took from junior high on were all outside; mow the greens and help out at the local golf course to mowing lawns, landscaping. I always gravitated towards that in the summer just because I liked the outdoors. I got into that and then led me right into being with Davey Tree.
Doug: Tell me a little bit about your job now.
Rich: Right now I'm District Manager. I've got to manage the crews, equipment, and I'm still a representative, so I still go out and see clients.
Doug: Tell me a little bit about that, your relationship with your clients.
Rich: Yes, it's pretty big. You definitely want to have a good relationship. That way they'll stick with you and they can trust that you'll be there when they need you, like a hurricane. Yes, that's one of the biggest things that I like also is just having that communication. You meet all types of different people, especially down here in Florida. You've got people from New England states to Midwest to out West. You got all different types of personalities and, how people were raised coming down to different personalities.
Doug: Coming down to live the good life without all this snow that we have to deal with up here.
Rich: Right, exactly.
Doug: When you go to a property like this time of the year, just run through basically what you're looking for. We've talked a little bit about the pruning and such, but it's not just looking up, right? It's also looking down at that tree too, right?
Rich: Right, yes. Looking for deadwood, decay, cavity holes, the root structure like you were saying, discolored foliage, anything that you can visually see. A lot of people, they don't really look up or down. They're just looking straight ahead and they usually don't look either way and just walk to their car and whatnot. Definitely before a hurricane, say around May or June, try to get prepared for it. You want to look for trees around your house, branches that may touch your roof or your house itself, or going down low, like you said, at the roots, maybe impacting the house and the foundation.
Doug: One thing we didn't touch on were pests. Up here, we get a break. Soon as that frost hits, we get a break. You've got 12 months of pests doing what they do on those trees.
Rich: Right. With the weather down here it's all year long. That's one of the biggest factors when going to look at a tree. It may have an insect or a disease, and you got to think, "What's causing that?" Because usually, those are secondary diseases or insects that attack it and give a reason for it to get in easier. It could be as simple as mower damage hitting the bottom, topping or, topping a tree, drought, flooding, improper mulching, putting too much mulch on top where the roots don't get enough oxygen and can start to die back up top. Instead of thinking, "Hey, there's something up in my tree," it could just be it's not getting oxygen enough to breathe. That's why the dieback's happening.
Doug: Since you have so many people moving down there, do they want to grow what they grew wherever they lived, to remind them of back home? Is that basically an impossibility? Are you growing different things down there than you would from New England and other areas?
Rich: Yes, definitely a lot of different trees, even from Northern.
Florida down to here, with the zone that we're in, it's subtropical. Even palm trees that you can't even grow in, say, Orlando or Jacksonville, just because of the temperature, difference in the rainfall. A lot of people, they want some exotic trees that may not need enough water, or may need more water for it to survive. You've got some palms where you have to put your favorite bush or flowers right next to the palm, but the plant needs excessive amounts of water where the palm likes it in the desert. When you come to a property and they say, "This isn't growing right," or, "My palm doesn't look good, but my shrubs do," it's getting too much water, and what you have planted next to it isn't getting enough.
Doug: Tell me about some of the cool trees that you can install down there that we couldn't grow anywhere else. I think that's pretty interesting.
Rich: Yes, there's a lot of different varieties from, just the names of them, like Tabebuia, gumbo limbo. The Geiger, that's one of my favorites, is the orange Geiger. They think it originated in Key West, I think is where they think it came from, but it's flowering, so it doesn't get too big. It's one of my main things for my yard, is I don't want trees to get too big. Something easy to maintain, but colorful, because you got the native trees, like the live oak and the mahoganies, but they get big and they're messy. Then, of course, the palm trees. A lot of people like palm trees.
Doug: When you're deciding on planting at a property, talk about thinking about putting a tree in there when you're concerned about storm season.
Rich: Right, you go back to the right plant, right place. Are you going to put a large tree that's going to grow to 50 feet tall underneath power lines, or too close to your house, or do you want a mango tree, but, mango trees can get pretty large? If it gets out of control and it gets too big, you can't reach the fruit up top if it's not taken care of and reduced every year. Then, all of a sudden, it lands in your yard, and the rodents are getting to it, and then it starts to smell. Those are things you got to keep in mind, that if you do want a tree, you got to maintain it yearly before it gets out of control.
Doug: How big does a mango tree get? That sounds so cool to me. It's like to be able to grow your own mangoes, but then you tell me the downside. You can't get to them, and when they do drop off, I can't imagine what a hundred mangoes laying in the front yard with all sorts of crazy creatures I haven't seen before feasting on them.
Rich: I believe they get to about 40, around 40, maybe 50 feet tall, they can. They do get pretty large, which is a large tree down here in Florida. As long as you reduce it the proper way that they can reach the fruit, say only make sure it's 15, 20 feet tall at the most, that way you contain the growth and you can still get the maximum amount of fruit out of it.
Doug: What's another unique tree for down there that you like to put into properties?
Rich: I'm trying to think here. Besides the palm, like a hardwood?
Doug: Yes. First off, when I hear mahogany, again, this is like a different world down there compared to being in the mid-Atlantic states, and so it's just interesting to hear the different cool things that you can put in place there.
Rich: Well, a cool one, let's see, the Schefflera. Schefflera, it's a different name too. They definitely look like they're from another planet, or very tropical, I guess. They have flowers on them, a few different varieties of colors, but those are pretty cool to look at.
Doug: Rich, before I let you go, talk a little bit about when you do have one of these bad storms and you're able to go in and make some positive changes for each property. That's just got to feel good to be a sort of savior after one of these storms.
Rich: Yes, it does feel good. You can help people and their trees and prevent them before a storm from falling. There's good data on that if you do properly prune your trees, fertilize them, and take care of them, that they can withstand storms a lot better than one that hasn't been taken care of.
Doug: Well, Rich, I appreciate your time. We're crossing our fingers up here that you don't have a bad September, that what happened in August continues, and you've got some mild weather. We do, though, hate you because you don't have winter.
Rich: Right. That's why we got all the snowbirds down here. [laughter]
Doug: All right, Rich. Thanks again. I appreciate all the great information.
Rich: Thank you.
Doug: As I said, I hope the weather works out down there and that we have a mild winter up here. Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast. From the Davy Tree Expert Company, I'm your host, Doug Oster. Do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast so that you'll never miss an episode, and as always, we like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.
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