imo: Just say no.

You owe yourself to call around and talk to other tree services and compare prices.

Make sure they're insured or bonded.

You're right. I'll slow down and make some more calls. Yes, that person who gave me the estimate was bonded and insured. Thanks!

Sorry to sound cynical (haha, as if that should seem like a shock to anyone at this point...) but at least 50% of people in the 'building trades' are just out to rip you off. That's been my experience anyhow. I don't know what your garden looks like, but the fact he tried to upsell you on more services you weren't asking for is almost certainly a *very* bad sign. You should get a lot more estimates like Bill said. I will also say my experience is that the best companies don't have to advertise - they get their work via word of mouth. Something to be aware of.

Yes, you are correct btw - you don't need a certified arborist just to do some simple branch or tree removals. My county is maybe a weird exception because it's the most rural county on the I-95 corridor between DC and Boston - my theory is the big cities "suck away" intelligent people who would want to open such businesses around here - but I can say some of the dumbest tree work around here has been done by a 'certified arborist' who shall remain nameless of course. (BTW, not the same guy I think cut down the monkey puzzle in Delaware. A different idiot!)

I want to clarify something - I think MOST certified arborists probably are more likely to do the correct thing, in complex situations, than just some tree trimming rando. I'm saying there can be exceptions, and as luck would have it, I'm aware of one.

UBGardener - Thank you for your honest experience. Unfortunately when you have repeated bad experiences with people doing work, you are smart to become skepitcal. My parents were repeating the old adage, 'Buyer Beware' when we were growing up and it is still true.

I'm finding it not so easy to find people to call. Of course a google search, turned up a couple of names. One that I recognized as having done business in the area for over 20 years. I did call them, They charge you $150. to come out and do an estimate and then put it toward work done if you go ahead. I said, no thanks. [g]

There is yelp, which is where I usually end up. I miss the days when we used to have ONE yellow pages and anything you were looking for you'd find there.

Re the guy who says he's an arborist. Is he just calling himself one or is he a certified arborist?

Okay....update. I did call around. Found someone who has been in business 30 years, a family run business, father and son. Has 50 reviews online that speak very highly of them. And he came out right away to give me an estimate. He was very easy to talk to and professional, didn't look at anything but what I wanted work on. He is insured and will send me a copy of it. He can come next week. And....he gave me a price of $1,000. to remove branches on one side of 4 dead Spruce trees, all the way up to the top. Remove more lower branches from 3 other spruce trees,That all have Poison Ivy 3/4 of the way up the tree. Remove a large overhanging branch from a Silver Maple and take off selective lower branches ...large ones, from our front Maple that are over our garage and too far into the street. He said it would take him less than a day. Will remove all the dead branches and clean up.

Quite a difference from the first guy. He told me it would take all day just to do the dead branches. And he wanted to charge me $3500. for less than what this company is going to do in less time. $1500 less is a lot of money to me any way.

Thank you all for all the suggestions to get more quotes. I hired him on the spot, and he's putting us on the schedule. I hoped to plant my bed along the fence that the dead tree branches are above, this Fall. So with that done, I will have plenty of time to get that done. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

Laceyvail - I didn't take the time to look up if he was an arborist, but, he never told me he was only in business since 2023. And you should see the size of the contract he left with us to review. Has all this explanatory information about how the trees should be done. It's about an inch thick.

Good job! prairiemoon2.

You saved yourself $2,500 and getting a more custom list done. :o)

Thank you Bill, Hopefully, it all works out and I don't regret my choice. [g] I'll update after the work is done....thanks again everyone for the advice!

Sounds like the first guy was either a scam artist or was so impressed with himself and his certification that he though he could charge any amount he wanted.

I was thinking the same thing. I hope I don't get proven wrong. *sigh* But not long to wait. He's coming next week.

More good news.....when we talked to the neighbor and asked if he had thought of taking down the dead trees, prior to discussing trimming the dead branches on our side, he surprised us and said he had been thinking about it. We said we could give him the name of someone who could give him a good price and he said give them my number.

It's all set, they are removing 3 of his dead spruces! That takes some of the cost off our estimate, but there are still three spruce that we need to trim that he wasn't going to do. And the three he is taking out, are not all that noticeable from our side. But....very happy to get rid of dead trees. And with the savings, I am having them do a little more trimming on our large Maples and taking off a couple of smaller lower branches on a Silver Maple and a Japanese Maple. Plus after the drought the past few years, I have dead branches at the bottom of my Western Arborvitae and he's taking all those off, saving me the trouble. Backbreaking location to get them off. I'm happy with the price and I just hope I will be satisfied with the work.

I will update next week.

Done. hahaha... The Tree company was here on Tuesday to do the work. It all worked out so well. My husband and I are really happy with the change. It was touch and go the day before they were due here, when the neighbor said he hadn't thought his deal to remove the trees was finalized. But they talked and sure enough, Tuesday they were in his yard with a truck with an arm on the front that picked up the trees as they came down. One of the workers climbed the trees and topped them, then came down and dropped them. Three dead trees gone! Yay!!

With a small increase in the estimate, this company did all the jobs I wanted to get done on our trees. One large Maple had a lot of dead wood removed and the dripline raised up with some strategic trimming. The front Maple - these are over 40 years old - needed two large lower branches removed, one over the driveway and one over the garage. An amazing difference in the appearance and the light but also safer in a storm. I also think it will be better for the tree.

I had a lot of dead branches on the underside of a large Western Arborvitae that I wasn't looking forward to getting under to remove and they took all those off. Then there was a Silver Maple that is planted on the lot line between our property and a different neighbor, and it leans into our yard. They climbed up into that tree and must have spent an hour just cleaning it up and dropped two large branches that were partially dead and an eyesore. Again, it looks so much better and more light later in the day from the West.

They cleaned up a lot of dead branches on the remaining 3 spruce trees in the neighbor's yard and removed a lower limb on our Japanese Maple and trimmed branch tips that were touching the house.

What is amazing is that the Arborist that quoted me $3500. was only going to trim up dead branches on the Spruces and take down one branch off the Silver Maple. He had also said, that for $7800. they could take care of all the trees and shrubs in the yard. That it would take 3 days.

So, all the work I would have wanted him to do was done in less than a day, and included removing 3 dead trees, which we didn't pay for of course. And the bill was $1300. One of my neighbor's the next day said that was still high. LOL Maybe it is, but, we are happy with the work that was done and the difference in the prices we received. They did a good job, they were easy to work with and I'm usually pretty fussy. The only thing I regret is that it got a little chaotic later in the day, we had an appt for our dog and had to leave and the big boss showed up when it was time to take the trees in the neighbor's yard down and I had only talked to his son. I had a late thought, to ask for the wood chips and that didn't work out. But...my DH is happy he won't be shoveling wood chips out of the driveway for a month. lol

I took some photos and videos but I haven't the time to go through them right now. I'll see if I can do that soon. Thanks again for all the advice. :-)

wow! IMO: That guy did things in a very thoughtful way and $1300, for all that, wouldn't make me feel like I've been 'Clipped' or anything.

It was nice your neighbors were agreeable to having it all done.

Looking forward to the report when you get time.

Congratulations! It’s so great to get help with strenuous property work. Plus all done and cleaned up in a day. Now you can enjoy the more fun part of planting new beds, etc.!

$1,300 is a great price for that amount of work with disposal especially since it sounds like the crew was careful not to destroy your lawn, damage other plantings when they removed large limbs, etc.

The $3,500 quote you received is typical in my area for a large tree company with (selling) arborist and union crews. They usually do a very good job but for most work I find they charge a lot more than an equally competent insured local tree service.

As for your neighbor who says you overpaid… they likely have not hired out similar work by a quality contractor in a long long time.

Thank you all for putting some perspective on the price and the amount of work we had done. Yes, it certainly was lovely that they didn't destroy anything in the process. I watched them all day and they were experienced at lowering the large branches so nothing was destroyed. And i had a couple of small newly planted shrubs right under the trees with the dead branches and they turned a barrel over them and actually didn't even come close to dropping anything on them. And they took away all their debris and a few larger branches we had sitting around since the spring.

It was a company that had been in business 30years. I dealt with the son of a father/son business and also the Dad showed up later in the day. They all worked really well together and one person on the job seemed to be designated to communicate with me and make sure I was happy with the decisions they were making. I was exhausted just watching them. [g] Again, we feel really good. It was worth the whole $1300. to us to get that work done. We'd been looking at it for years. And to get away with no complaints is not to be expected, really. Not in our experience.

Dereck Swordsward is a spammer.