Should I remove or save my serviceberry?
Serviceberry isn't a habitual problem species, so a sound one is usually worth an opinion before it comes out. Serviceberry is one of the default small trees going into central Indiana front yards now that builders and municipalities are moving off Callery pear, so the volume of calls is rising with the planting volume. Almost none of them are hazard calls — they are about orange-spotted leaves in June and purple berry stain on the drive.
How to tell which one you've got
Cedar-serviceberry, cedar-quince and cedar-hawthorn rusts are the loud problem and the cosmetic one — orange to yellow leaf and fruit lesions in a wet spring, sometimes with gelatinous galls, ugly but survivable. Fire blight is what actually kills it: blackened shoot tips curled into a shepherd's crook with dead leaves still hanging on, which needs cutting 8 to 12 inches back into clean wood with tools sterilized between cuts.
The structural question
It rates intermediate for ice damage and is too small to threaten a structure, but the multi-stem habit is its weak point under glaze. Loaded stems splay outward and bend to the ground, and the typical damage is one stem splitting away at the base of the clump — usually a pruning and cabling-free repair job rather than a removal.
Related
- How much does it cost to remove a serviceberry?→
- When should a serviceberry be pruned?→
- Are serviceberry roots a problem for foundations or pipes?→
- Is my serviceberry dying or just stressed?→
- How does a serviceberry hold up in a storm?→
- How much does it cost to remove an american basswood?→
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- When should an american basswood be pruned?→