GRAFTON - Trees Please, a business in Grafton, has a guarantee: With their help, your trees will thrive.
Owner Steven Jones started taking care of trees 33 years ago. A self-described “tree doctor,” Jones consults with homeowners and checks the health of declining trees, then gives them a booster shot to improve their health. With his help, homeowners can save their trees rather than cutting them down.
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“I treat trees for disease,” he explained. “We inject them with an insecticide that’s systemic, goes up through the vascular system, kills the bugs, fertilizes them. The tree, once it’s treated, will flourish after that.”
Trees Please charges a $100 consultation fee, but Jones deducts this from the charge if you decide to hire him to treat the tree. He charges anywhere from $75 to $350 to treat a tree, depending on the size and the problem.
“It’s cheaper to save them than just to cut them down and have them hauled away,” he pointed out.
During a consultation, Jones will check the trunk for boreholes or other signs of insect infestations. If a tree is too far gone, he’s open about this with his customers. But if he believes he can save it, he will do everything in his power to do so.
“Don’t wait until it’s too late when the tree is dead,” he advised. “But very seldom do I come across a tree that is so far along that I can’t save it.”
He offers a one-year guarantee: If, for any reason, your tree dies in the year after he treats it, he will refund your money.
Jones approaches every tree from a place of passion. As a child, Jones and his grandfather would dig up “little tiny trees” from the forest and go door-to-door to sell and plant them in Riverbend neighborhoods.
In college, he studied to become a master gardener. He still regularly calls one of his professors for advice.
He shared that he has planted thousands of trees in the Riverbend region, including on his own farm.
“I moved to Godfrey and I planted a whole bunch of trees, thousands,” he remembered. “Then I moved up here to Grafton and I planted 18,000 trees on 80 acres.”
He believes in the importance of planting and saving trees, not only for the environmental benefits, but also because it helps homeowners. He said he regularly works with homeowners to help them decide where to plant trees on their property so that the trees get sunlight while offering protection from the weather.
Jones wants to save as many trees as he can, and he encourages people to call him when their trees start showing signs of decline. He feels strongly that we need healthy, thriving trees, and he is doing his part to make this a reality in the Riverbend region.
“They’re beautiful. If you saw my farm, you’d realize,” he added. “People ask me, what do I do at my farm? And I tell them, I make oxygen.”
For more information about Trees Please or to schedule a consultation, call Jones at 618-581-4096.
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