Tree Surgeon VS Arborist: What’s the Difference? By Tree Surgeon Carlisle
The words “tree surgeon” and “arborist” are very often used interchangeably, with people confusing one with the other or even sometimes thinking that they are actually one and the same. While there may be a significant amount in common between a tree surgeon and an arborist, there are some key differences between the two.
One of the main differences between the two is the qualifications they have. Then it’s about the knowledge they have about the trees they work with and how they care for them. If you think of a tree surgeon as a medical surgeon and an arborist as a doctor, you may begin to see how they can be similar yet very different.
Tree surgeon
An experienced tree surgeon is adept at safely pruning, felling and removing trees – including stumps. This isn’t the kind of thing anyone can do with a saw, any more than you would trust your neighbor to perform surgery on you with zero time spent as a real, qualified surgeon.
Fully trained surgeons perform extremely difficult tasks that are often dangerous and can do them accurately, with care, professionally and safely. For example, felling a tree requires an element of precision that is simply not possible without proper training; there are many things that can go wrong, including surrounding trees being knocked over by the weight of the target tree crashing into them.
Like a chimney, a tree needs to be felled in a controlled manner where its direction can be dictated so as not to damage anything that may be around it that cannot be removed. Even branch removal has its pitfalls, which should not be performed by anyone other than a professional tree surgeon.
Arborist
An arborist can be considered a doctor if a tree surgeon can be considered a medical surgeon. An arborist can accurately identify disease in a tree by studying the displayed symptoms and making treatment recommendations—such as referring the “patient” to a tree surgeon if necessary.
Ecological systems and the various interactions within them are complex and vary greatly depending on the environment; horticulturists and forestry agencies cannot always put together a group of plants such as trees and expect them all to get along. Things don’t always work out that way, unfortunately.
A fully qualified arborist will be able to tell you which trees will thrive in the available conditions and among the existing plants and animals – including insects. Of course, the arborist also takes into account the type of soil when examining the surroundings. All of these things are key to a healthy and thriving environment for the trees in question.
Hopefully, you now have a better idea of what tree surgeons and arborists do, but also how they differ from each other while still maintaining close ties to each other.