Shawsheen Tree Co. Is Quietly Teaching the Merrimack Valley to Care for Its Trees
The Andover tree company gives away what most keep behind an invoice: a growing library of free guides on when to prune, how to spot disease, and how to ready New England's trees for winter.
By Marcus Ellery
ANDOVER, Mass. - Most tree companies wait for the phone to ring after a branch is already on the roof. Shawsheen Tree Co. would rather teach homeowners how to keep it from getting there.
The Andover-based company, owned by Rick Mack, serves Andover and the wider Merrimack Valley with pruning, removals, stump grinding, storm cleanup and 24/7 emergency service. But what sets it apart is not the truck in the driveway - it is a steadily growing library of free, plain-English guides that hand neighbors the knowledge usually kept behind an invoice.
That library now runs to fifteen tree-care guides covering the questions New England homeowners actually ask. When is the right time to prune in Massachusetts? What is beech leaf disease, and how do you spot it before it spreads? Why does oak wilt matter here, and what does a storm-ready tree look like before a nor'easter rolls in? Each guide is written for the homeowner, not the arborist.
The company's advice starts with timing. "Fall is the ideal window for pruning most New England species," said Rick Mack, owner of Shawsheen Tree Co. "Trees are entering dormancy, which means cleaner cuts, faster healing in spring, and a much lower risk of disease transmission. A thorough fall inspection also catches weak limbs before winter ice and wind turn them into hazards."
From there the guidance gets practical. Shawsheen tells homeowners to remove dead, damaged or crossing branches; thin dense canopies so wind passes through instead of pushing against them; inspect the trees nearest roofs, driveways and power lines; mulch root zones before the ground freezes; and bring in a professional for large or high-value trees rather than guessing.
A good share of the company's teaching is about disease, because in the Merrimack Valley that is where trees are quietly lost. Beech leaf disease, oak wilt, anthracnose, apple scab, fire blight and Dutch elm disease all turn up in local yards, and most of them are far easier to manage when a homeowner catches the early signs. Shawsheen's guides walk through what those signs look like - the discoloration, the thinning, the bark that is not quite right - so a problem gets caught in a season rather than a decade.
The rest is about New England weather. The company's storm-proofing guidance is built around the region's nor'easters: the goal is to reduce the wind load a tree carries and to find the weak unions and dead limbs before a storm finds them first.
None of it is a hard sell. The pitch, if there is one, is simply that an informed homeowner makes better decisions about the trees on their property - and that a company willing to explain its work is a company worth calling when the job is bigger than a Saturday afternoon. For Andover and the Merrimack Valley, Shawsheen Tree Co. has made itself easy to learn from first and hire second.
Shawsheen Tree Co. is based at 18 Summer St, Andover, MA, and publishes its tree-care guides at treepruningandoverma.com.
Source: New London Media
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