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We've seen terminology evolve—like the shift from SRT to SRS, or redefining the 'D' in CODIT from 'decay' to 'damage' or 'dysfunction.' To some, these changes feel pedantic. But language shapes how we think—and how we treat trees.
Even changing one word in these sentences can change our perceptions of these concepts and our relationships with these concepts. This improved understanding finds its way into our communications with clients too, if you know how to do it.
Since we emphasize so much that arboriculture happens in conversation, we recently thought that should be a larger part of what we share online. We’ve practiced under the notion that when clients are informed, they let you do actual arboriculture. Which is different from production tree work.
This article is about how changing a single word in our vocabulary helped us have more constructive conversations towards good tree outcomes.
‘Defect’
We mentioned in a previous conversation on YouTube that we often workshop between ourselves how to say certain things in concise ways, and we pay attention to how we communicate. Our attitude, disposition, language, all of that, both online and in real life. Not as salespeople, but as people who love trees.
Maybe 3ish years ago we stopped using the word ‘defect’ in our speaking with clients, in our website, in our articles, reports, lectures. We’ve stopped using this word to describe anything about a tree.
A defect is something that is a fault, something less than perfect. Something that doesn't belong.
Our practice focuses on supporting big old trees, we’re lucky to have a lot of them in our community. And if you too are lucky enough to know some big and awesome old trees, you know they’re less than perfect.
The Majesty Oak in the village of Nonington in Kent, England. Photo from my signed copy of Julian Hight’s book World Tree Story.
Old trees are a continuous thread of life weaving back into history. Imagine standing next to a living thing that’s 700 years old?
If you’re a good arborist, you get to make sure these things are in our future. Imagine that, dude.
Now think of the millions of organisms that have eaten from its leaves throughout its life. The countless animals that have raised young in its hollows. The rare fungi and insect species that can only be found in ancient trees. How much life the tree has supported.
Imagine removing the pictured tree because it had a “defect”. Trees like the Majesty Oak are around only because they’re lucky enough to have people who defended them. Most trees aren’t so lucky.
A fundamental part of our roles is educating our communities on why big old trees are important. Why they’re both ecologically important and culturally important. If you’re an arborist practitioner, the very first thing you’ll do with a tree is talk about it. Using the wrong lingo can inadvertently make your attempts at having good tree outcomes far more difficult.
We’ve replaced ‘defect’ with words like ‘feature’, ‘decay feature’, ‘feature of concern’, ‘element’, ‘characteristic’, ‘trait’, ‘irregularity’, etc.. These are more neutral terms.
A decay column that is no longer hydraulically functional for the tree; sure, one could say its original function is no longer there. A more charitable and realistic perspective is that that feature may be defective for moving water through the tree, but now it is habitat instead. I'm simplifying here, but you get the idea.
A tree free of "defects" isn't necessarily a "better tree" than a tree with them. And a tree isn’t necessarily “better” if you remove its “defects”.
Neutrality
We have to be able to describe what we’re seeing or analyzing without scaring the client. Without being reactive. This sort of goes in direct opposition to what a removal company might be saying to them. And in our area, there’s lots of removal companies. Using words like ‘defect’ steers the client towards something being less than perfect. And it steers them closer to justifying removing the ‘defective’ feature or even killing the tree altogether.
A large decay feature resulting from an excessively large pruning cut on a silver maple in Ferndale.
This is an industry word. I acknowledge it is concise. When arborists or tree guys are trained to find ‘defects’, they’re incidentally being trained on finding reasons to remove trees. To remove certain features. They’re taught how to make money from trees, and that doesn’t always align with tree longevity, good tree outcomes, or tree preservation at all. A notion that exemplifies this is one we’ve said before, “just because you know how to make a ‘proper’ cut doesn’t necessarily make it a good thing to do”.
When industry-produced literature and on-the-job training delivers information through the lens of how to work with trees, how to make money with trees, it makes it easy for arborists/tree guys to land on the conclusion that that’s all there is to trees. They’re trained how to work on trees, rather than how trees work, or what trees actually do.
We know lots of arborists who are dissatisfied with their work. Either blaming the companies they work for or the company’s clients. It is easy to become complacent, or to become industry-pilled.
Imagine job-hopping around the different tree companies in your area. They all likely have the same philosophies, believe in the same dogma, etc.. Working on your skills only to do work that isn’t all that positive for trees. I totally understand why this industry can cause disenchantment with trees.
The broader reputation that tree service companies are focused on tree-killin’ and not tree preservation comes from some quite clear observations. Companies make lots of money from tree-killin’, they equip for it, an industry supplies them with the equipment to do it. Informed by why they should remove something. The language provided to in-the-industry people aids in achieving better business outcomes, you know what I mean? Eventually, the people within the companies and their clients start to believe all this stuff.
This is a systemic problem, and I don’t think this one example of replacing ‘defect’ is the sole cure for it. But it is a good example of why conversation and choice of words is important. You can keep clients on the side of preserving trees better by using more neutral terms. Remaining unphased and nonreactive.
While working for other companies, we’ve killed massive, healthy, and manageable trees too. I know that sometimes clients just want trees gone. But there are plenty of trees homeowners are told “need to come down”, and they take what the arborist/tree cutter says in good faith.
And maybe the salesperson believes those things, and sometimes that is the right decision. I’ve heard many stories from clients on “they said the tree was hollow”, etc etc, and they saw only solid logs being removed from the tree. You know the story.
Long ago, Jack and I removed an enormous and healthy sycamore in Grosse Pointe that our then company told the client was hollow. Not a hollow was found. We made all those cuts.
A split feature in a dogwood in Royal Oak.
Was this an issue of communication? Was the company being predatory? Did they believe the tree needed to come down? Not sure. My point is that it happens, and it happens a lot. And improving how we communicate can reduce the frequency that big mature and veteran trees are removed. It gets us closer to having better outcomes for trees.
And I’m not saying to lead people into retaining trees that are clearly high risk. I’m not talking about obvious edge cases. I’m saying that if you’re having conversations with clients about their tree’s “defects”, they assume that you have a nuanced understanding of tree stability, tree risk, tree health, etc.. And when you see any feature of concern and immediately jump to removing the tree or the feature, without proposing how it could be managed, then you aren’t ready to have those conversations with clients yet.
Our choice of words alone can sway clients’ perspectives. And we ought to wield that wisely.
They Hear What We Say
“The decay feature in the tree’s base is worth looking at more closely”. Sure, a decay feature can be concerning and it can be defective to a meaningful degree against the tree’s stability. But wielding that language towards the client immediately adds a qualitative judgement. You’re describing the feature as inherently bad. Having a ‘defect’ is loaded with negative connotations. I reckon it can only be a defect after it qualifies as one, but not immediately.
A very large and concerning longitudinal split Jack found in a Siberian elm above a garage in Ferndale. This might qualify as a ‘defect’.
Have you assessed it yet? Do you know how to do that? Have you determined the decay’s extent? Have you plugged the tree’s dimensions into a stability model? The more one dives into these subjects, the more obvious it becomes that one glance is usually not enough.
Healthy urban forest ecosystems still need all of its parts to be considered ‘healthy’. Having decay in a stem, hollowing in a trunk, old tear-outs, whatever, are necessary elements to have a functional thriving ecosystem. They are good things to have around. And they can often be managed. Not always, of course.
Arboriculture happens in conversation. Being attentive to the language we use really does matter. Sometimes we’re communicating with someone who is genuinely afraid of a tree. They’re someone in our community afraid of a really important and hard to replace contributor in our community. Navigating those conversations with patience, sincerity, and slowness gets you closer to practicing arboriculture.
It starts and ends with nuanced perspective and the ability to communicate it. That includes not only our conversations with them, but also our emails, reports, branding on our websites and instagrams, it all counts if you want to actually do good arboriculture. Flexing how good you are at tree-killin’ doesn’t exactly signal to potential clients that you care much about keeping trees around.
And you can take your first foot off that path by starting to think in more neutral terms. It is so easy to start practicing. It is easy to think it is useless and the client’s got their mind made up. When they call upon you, even if their language doesn’t specifically say it, they’re asking for professional input. You got better at climbing by putting reps in. You need to put reps in to get good at this too.
A lot of things work against good tree outcomes. Cultural attitudes, massive changes of land use, business-incentives, and above all, inadequate understanding about trees.
Us as arborists should strive to be a north star for our communities; guiding them towards appreciation and empathy with nature and with trees. Our jobs put us face to face with the public as people who touch trees daily.
If we want more people to value trees, we have to show them how. Not as experts of trees, but as students of them.