Answered for Greenfield, Hancock County.
Woodpeckers are reading the tree for you. Apart from sapsuckers they are not attacking it — they follow insects, and insects follow dead or decaying wood. Heavy foraging damage is evidence that something else got there first, so the bird is the alarm rather than the fire. Sapsuckers are the exception: they drill for sap on healthy trees, and while the rows look bad and can occasionally girdle a small limb, they rarely kill an established tree. In Greenfield — Greenfield Residential Historic District, Brandywine Village and Fieldstone included, that's normally a tree trimming job at $250–$1,400. Not urgent.
Greenfield has a genuinely old core wrapped in new subdivisions. The Greenfield Residential Historic District — 523 contributing buildings on 187 acres, listed on the National Register in 2011 — was built between about 1880 and 1947, so those blocks carry street and yard trees well over a century old, while the Brandywine/US 40 corridor subdivisions are largely 1970s through 2000s with new sections still being added on young nursery stock.
Greenfield was not one of the 23 communities in the Indiana DNR street tree sample, so there is no published species breakdown — the honest picture is a two-tier canopy: mature shade trees dating to the historic district's roughly 1880-1947 build-out over those streets and Riley Park, versus small suburban stock in the newer additions. Statewide, Indiana street tree populations run about 18% silver maple and 34% maple overall; Callery pear is common in 1990s-2000s plantings and as of 2026 is still legal to sell in Indiana, with the amendment that would add it to the Terrestrial Plant Rule pending since 2021 — re-check IDNR before advising a customer.
Greenfield has a real tree code — Chapter 97 — but it governs street trees, not your back yard. Under § 97.07 nobody may prune, spray or treat a street tree, or hire someone to, without the city first issuing a right-of-way permit (issued to property owners or certified arborists), and no street tree may be removed without that permit except in an emergency; a City Tree Commission oversees the program and Chapter 97 also sets street tree species, spacing and clearance standards. Those provisions could not be verified against a retrievable copy of the code — confirm with the city before quoting right-of-way work. There is no Greenfield permit requirement for removing a tree on private property, and Indiana has no statewide one.
The planting strip is city right-of-way and Greenfield actively controls it — the Chapter 97 right-of-way permit is the mechanism, species and spacing come from the ordinance and the city's Public Improvement Design Standards manual, and the City Tree Commission has a say. This is stricter than most Hancock County jurisdictions, where the strip is nominally public but effectively unmanaged.
1744 Sugar Creek Trail, Greenfield, IN 46140
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2067 Sunshine Dr, Greenfield, IN 46140
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5067 W US Hwy 40, Greenfield, IN 46140
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52 525W, Greenfield, IN 46140
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646 S 600 W Building #5, New Palestine, IN 46163
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4621 S Brooklawn Dr, New Palestine, IN 46163
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Distance measured from Greenfield.