The Davey Tree Expert Company provides residential and commercial tree service and landscape service throughout North America. Read our Flipbooks for helpful tips and information on proper tree and lawn care.
Issue link: http://daveytree.uberflip.com/i/826893
42 PLANT HEALTH CARE Davey takes a holistic approach to plant selection, planting and maintenance. The Davey Plant Health Care (PHC) program, developed by the Davey Institute and supported by the International Society of Arboriculture, provides our clients with thriving landscapes that minimize water and chemical usage. Based on the principle that healthy plants are better able to defend themselves and withstand stressful events, PHC integrates plant selection and placement with cultural, biological and chemical pest controls. While trees appear to be forgiving of difficult growing conditions, the accumulation of health-related issues can lead to decline, dieback or death. We routinely observe that trees in urban areas live shorter lives than their counterparts in natural areas, and the more unnatural the landscape, the greater the need for arboricultural management. Trees in residential areas often provide a low margin of error for safety due to the presence of people, pets and structures. The PHC program was built to address these issues, as well as educate Davey clients on tree health protocols and help align with the motivations, priorities and goals of landscape owners. By creating a landscape of healthy and hardy plants, Davey's PHC program reduces the need for harmful chemicals and excessive watering. RESTORED STREAMS SPAWN FISHING DERBY For six years running, Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc. (WSSI), a Davey company, has sponsored a fishing derby for children living among more than 9 miles of restored streams in Virginia. WSSI celebrated its 6th Annual Kids Fishing Derby in March 2016 in Reston, Virginia. The fishing derby, started in 2011, has become a welcome benefit. Each spring, WSSI pays for and arranges delivery of over 400 trout from a private hatchery. Volunteers from WSSI, Reston Association, Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) and Northern Virginia Trout Unlimited (NVTU) register participants, hand out rods and nets, help fish and even filet the catches for the participants to take home for dinner that evening. WSSI has been restoring streams with three separate watersheds in Reston, home to nearly 60,000 residents, since 2003. WSSI employees turned what had become little more than heavily eroded drainage ditches into beautifully restored streams. The streams had become degraded in large part due to uncontrolled storm water run-off, which led to the community's lakes filling in with accumulated sediment—further eroding the community's water quality. Scott Petrey, senior associate engineer with WSSI, said the work has become one of the largest stream restoration projects in the region. CHEMICAL MANAGEMENT Our chemical management system ensures the safe storage, handling, transportation, application and disposal of all chemicals. Individual facilities are responsible for the purchase and storage of chemicals used in their operations under the guidance of Davey's chemical management policies and procedures. In the field, we use closed loading systems and returnable, recyclable and refillable containers, when possible, maximizing chemical safety for our employees, clients and the environment. We log chemical types and quantities used at every site in a local chemical inventory, which is updated each month.