That time a homeowner argued with me for 20 minutes about a dead oak

Last summer in Austin, I was doing a bid for this big live oak that was clearly dead. Bark peeling, no leaves, fungus all over the base. The guy kept saying "but it leafed out last spring." I finally had to show him the carpenter ant tunnels and the bracket fungus before he believed me. Has anyone else had a client refuse to see the obvious?

3 comments

3 Comments

knight.uma5d ago

Maybe that dead oak still had some life insurance you didn't know about.

the_felix5d ago

Don't you think sometimes we get so caught up in our own diagnosis that we forget to consider the tree might surprise us? That oak could have been hanging on by a thread, but it was still trying to leaf out.

adam4144d ago

@the_felix I get what you're saying, but a dead oak is a dead oak once the bracket fungus sets in and the bark starts peeling off. That tree was past surprising anyone, it was just a hazard waiting to fall.