16th June is Arborist Appreciation Day, and here at YGS Landscapes it feels like a good moment to talk about something we feel strongly about – the extraordinary skill, knowledge and dedication that goes into professional tree care.
Arboriculture is one of those disciplines that looks deceptively simple from the outside. A tree is a tree, right? In reality, a qualified arborist is part scientist, part engineer, part ecologist and part surgeon. They read a tree the way a doctor reads a patient – assessing health, identifying disease, understanding structure, and making decisions that will affect that tree for decades to come.
Trees are long-term investments. A tree planted today may still be standing in 200 years. The decisions made about its care – how it’s pruned, how the ground around it is managed, how it’s supported through establishment – shape its entire future. Get it wrong early and the consequences can last generations. Get it right and you create something of lasting beauty, ecological value and community benefit.
At YGS, trees are at the heart of much of what we do. Nowhere is that more evident than at Sherford New Town in Plymouth, where we have been the principal grounds maintenance contractor since 2015. One of our most remarkable tree stories there involves a Tulip Tree on Libra Avenue – a nine-metre, three-tonne specimen delivered by crane in July 2020 as a Mayflower 400 commemorative planting. That tree doesn’t just sit in the ground. It requires ongoing specialist care, and we are proud to be the team responsible for it.
Across the Sherford site we have also supported the planting of over 26,000 native woodland whips as part of the community forests programme each one requiring the right species selection, the right planting technique, and the right aftercare to give it the best possible start.
Tree work is also inherently one of the most skilled and physically demanding roles in the industry. Working at height, operating specialist equipment, making complex decisions under pressure – it requires years of training and experience to do safely and well. The arborists and tree teams who do this work day in, day out deserve far more recognition than they typically receive.
So today, on Arborist Appreciation Day, we want to say a genuine thank you – to our own team, and to arborists everywhere who give so much of themselves to the long-term health of our landscapes.
Trees don’t speak. But they remember good care.