Short answer: a tree is usually past saving when more than about a third of its crown is bare in the middle of summer, when mushrooms or shelf fungus are growing out of the root flare, or when the trunk has a crack, a hollow, or a lean that was not there last year. One of those signs is a reason to look closer. Two or three together, with a house, a driveway, or a power line underneath, is a reason to get it down before the weather does it for you.

Every summer we get called out to trees that are having a bad year and trees that are finished, and from the driveway they can look the same. Here are the seven things we actually look at, roughly in the order of how much they worry us, plus the four problems killing trees around Iosco, Ogemaw, and Alcona Counties right now.

1. Fungus at the base of the trunk

Mushrooms, shelf fungus, or a soft crumbling seam where the trunk flares into the ground is the sign we take most seriously, because it means the roots or the butt of the tree are rotting. The top can stay green for years while the anchor gives out underneath. A tree that fails at the root plate does not break and hang up in its neighbors; it goes over whole, root ball and all, and it takes whatever is on that side with it.

2. A crown that is thin or bare in July

Look at the tree in full leaf and compare it to the same species across the road. A few dead twigs at the top of an old tree is normal. A crown that is a third bare, or that leafed out late and small, or that is putting out sprouts along the trunk instead of at the tips, is a tree running out of stored energy. Bare limbs at the very top, called stag-heading, usually mean the decline started in the roots.

3. A lean that is new

Trees lean for all kinds of harmless reasons, mostly reaching for light on the edge of a clearing. What matters is whether the lean changed. Look at the ground on the high side: cracked, heaved, or mounded soil, or a gap opening between the trunk and the dirt, means the root plate is moving. That tree is coming down on its own schedule. We have pulled plenty of them out of yards after the June 2024 wind and after the March 2025 ice storm that hammered Alcona and Oscoda Counties, and most of them had been leaning a little more every year first.

4. Cracks, seams, and included bark

A vertical crack running up the trunk, a seam that weeps, or a split where two big stems meet in a tight V are all structural problems. That tight V, where bark is pinched between the stems instead of wood growing across, is how a big maple ends up splitting in half in a wind. Sometimes a co-dominant stem can be reduced or cabled instead of removed. That is worth asking about before you decide.

5. Bark falling off with nothing underneath

Bark sloughing off in sheets, with dry gray wood and no green layer under it, means that part of the trunk is dead. On ash it usually comes with woodpecker damage, pale patches where the birds have flaked the bark off chasing larvae. On any species, dead bark on the main stem over an area you care about is a removal conversation.

6. Deadwood coming down on its own

If you are picking up sticks and limbs after every breeze, the tree is shedding. Large dead limbs over a roof, a deck, a driveway, or the spot where the kids park are the ones that hurt somebody. Sometimes the fix is a clean deadwood pruning, not a removal. Just remember the oak wilt window: around here oaks do not get pruned between April 15 and July 15, per the Michigan DNR.

7. A hollow or a cavity

A hollow trunk is not automatically fatal. Trees hold themselves up with the outer shell of wood, and plenty of hollow old maples stand for decades. What matters is how much solid wood is left around the hollow, and whether the opening runs up the stem or into the root flare. A cavity you can put your arm into at the base, on a tree standing over the cabin, is not one to wait on.

What is killing trees around here

  • Oak wilt. Confirmed by the DNR in Iosco, Ogemaw, and Arenac Counties. A red oak can go from full green to bare in a matter of weeks, usually from the top down and the outside in. It moves beetle to fresh wound and root graft to root graft, which is why the no-prune window exists. More on the oak wilt window.
  • Emerald ash borer. Statewide, and it already took most of the ash. Thinning crown, sprouts along the trunk, woodpecker flecking, and D-shaped exit holes. Dead ash goes brittle fast, so it is the one tree we push people not to sit on. More on dead ash.
  • Beech bark disease. One of the pests Michigan asks you not to move in firewood. It shows as a scaly white coating on the bark, then cankers, then a beech that snaps off partway up years before it looks dead.
  • Spongy moth. The outbreak peaked in 2021 and has been waning since, but repeated defoliation stresses oaks and aspen, and a stressed tree is the one that gives up in the next drought or the next hard winter.

When a tree can be saved

Plenty of the trees we look at do not need to come down. A tree with one dead side and a healthy crown may just need pruning. A young tree with a bad fork may need a cable or a reduction cut. Sometimes the right answer is to leave it alone for a season and look again. We will tell you that, and we would rather tell you that than sell you a removal you did not need. If plant health care or an injection is the honest answer, that is a certified applicator's job and we will say so.

Getting a real read on it

Photos work for most of this: one of the whole tree from far enough back to see the top, one of the base and the root flare, and one looking straight up into the crown. Tell us what is underneath it. Send them through the estimate form or read more on the dead and hazard tree removal page. If the tree is already leaning on a house or a wire, skip the form and call.