August Arbor Doctor Client Update

Happy August!

It's dry out there, at least in some areas.

Rainfall has been highly variable this summer. Most areas saw very wet conditions in July, but the spigot has shut off for some in August. While some areas have gotten repeated downpours, many others have been left out of the party.

My location on the west side of Cincinnati has only had 0.36 inches of rain for the entire month. That combined with hot temperatures has led to the need to water. New transplants are especially at risk, but even established plants are becoming very dry in some spots. An update and watering instructions can be found at this link:

August 17, 2025 Soil Moisture, Condition Monitoring and Drought Update

Spotted Lanternfly Increasing

We are getting a lot of calls about Spotted Lanternfly, especially on the west side of town. Spotted Lanternfly populations are rapidly increasing. These insects are not killers but they can make quite a mess and they can be quite a nuisance. Our treatments are designed to limit plant damage, not to eliminate all insects from the landscape. It is nearly impossible to totally eliminate the Spotted Lanternfly. There are management options and Arbor Doctor is using those in our treatment programs. Additional information can be found at this link:

Spotted Lanternfly Management Guide

Box Tree Moth populations are increasing and spreading

We are seeing rapid increases in Box Tree Moth populations and large amounts of defoliation and damage on the east side of Cincinnati.

Box Tree Moth consumes boxwood shrubs. It is called the Box Tree Moth because it first became established in Europe where boxwoods grow as trees, hence the name. We have joked that we should rename it the Box Shrub Moth in Cincinnati but for now it retains its original name. Despite its name, it eats boxwood shrubs.

When the Box Tree Moth finds your landscape, it can rapidly damage boxwood shrubs, resulting in complete defoliation and death. The speed at which the Box Tree Moth attacks is similar to bagworms on evergreens, perhaps even faster. Fortunately, the Box Tree Moth only feeds on boxwoods and won't harm other trees and shrubs.

One key difference between the Box Tree Moth and bagworms is that we see 3 generations of Box Tree Moth per year. While bagworms hatch out in May and we generally only see one generation per year, Box Tree Moth can hatch out in April with periodic new populations emerging throughout the summer. This extended emergence means that several treatments are necessary to keep the pest under control. We have already had a couple instances where clients have elected to skip a treatment and lost shrubs as a result. If you have boxwoods, especially if you are east of Interstate 75, you need to be aware that the Box Tree Moth is close if it is not in your landscape already. Treatment is necessary to preserve your boxwoods.

Ron Rothhaas co-hosts with Ron Wilson in studio on In The Garden With Ron Wilson

On the morning of July 26, 2025, Arbor Doctor Principal Owner Ron Rothhaas joined radio host Ron Wilson on 55WKRC and iHeart Radio to talk trees. 

Click here to hear the first hour>>>

Margin

As an arborist I am very blessed to be able to do as a profession what I love. I know consulting arborists who are still practicing at age 75 and I can see myself doing that. Staying active as one ages is very important and I can't imagine retiring from arboriculture and trying to find another hobby, although I am also blessed that I have a number of interests and I do have other hobbies.

As Arbor Doctor continues to grow, I find that the demands on my time can be quite great. Because of that, in April we brought on board a new ISA Certified Arborist, Mandi Ganje. Mandi comes to us from Portland OR. She is a graduate of the University of Oregon and has already shown herself to be a great addition to our team.

Within two months of joining our team Mandi had already acquired the Prescription Tree Pruning Qualification from the ISA Florida Chapter and the Tree Risk Assessment Qualification from the ISA to go with her Certified Arborist credential. If you see Mandi, be assured that she has considerable knowledge and a great desire to help you with your plant and tree health care needs.

In early September we will have another certified arborist joining our staff. He is coming to us with plant health care experience and arborist certification in hand.

As for me, I plan to continue doing what I have been doing and stewarding this organization we call Arbor Doctor. That includes meeting with clients, consulting, risk assessment, appraisals, mentoring staff, and many other tasks that come with business.

At the same time, continuing education is very important to me. I currently have 245 hours of continuing education credits toward the 60 I'm required to have by June of 2026. I pass up many opportunities for continuing education, choosing those opportunities which are the most challenging and offer the most opportunity for professional growth. One of those opportunities this year is the International Conference of the International Society of Arboriculture being held in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I have attended a couple other international conferences, held in the United States, and they offer a unique opportunity to interact with and learn from arborists from all over the world. I have never traveled outside of the country for an international conference so this will be a first for me. I never thought I would get the opportunity to visit a country like New Zealand.

Since I am traveling halfway around the world I signed onto an extended tour of Australia and New Zealand. I will be gone for several weeks but I will be leaving the company in good hands. My director of operations, Camille Rechel, my office manager Diane Smith, and my staff of plant health care specialists and certified arborists are more than capable of holding down the fort while I am gone. Please do not hesitate to reach out to them while I'm gone. I will be back by late October, bringing with me greater knowledge and an expanded perspective.

I just finished the book Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives by Richard A. Swenson, M.D. I had first heard Doctor Swenson talk of this book over a quarter century ago and the concepts have stayed with me. As my business has grown and my life has gotten busy, the concept of margin has come to the forefront of my thoughts.

I reread the book and I'm working on living out its message in my life. This certainly does not mean that I am stepping away from the profession and career that I love. Quite the opposite. It does mean that I am only one person and I can only do so much. In order for me to continue to love arboriculture, my clients, and my company, I must have time to love God and myself. That cannot be done when my schedule and my life are overloaded, and I don't take time to step away. That cannot be done when my schedule is overloaded and my life is overloaded and I don't take time to step away.

In fact, my ability to serve you, my clients, is compromised if I am frazzled and overloaded. Nowhere in the Bible does God advocate that we be scheduled to the hilt and run on empty. In fact, just the opposite. God commands that we remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. He also tells us very clearly that the two most important commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Even Jesus did not heal every person he encountered, and he stepped away from the crowds for time for himself and time with his father.

So those are the priorities in my life. Love God, love my neighbors, which includes you, and love myself. If life or my schedule or my company get in the way of that, it is a signal to me that those duties need to be delegated in a different way. I cannot compromise my boundaries or I will no longer love what I am doing and that would be a crying shame.

As a part of this journey I have been on, it became obvious to me that I had put on too much weight. I read a lot of articles on nutrition and found that many of them were contradictory. I signed on with a functional nutritionist in Louisville, KY named Yetta Blair, meeting with her every couple of weeks by Zoom. Yetta has been a wonderful coach and is extremely knowledgeable. In the past year I've lost 40 lbs, long-suffered digestive issues have cleared up by 80%, and I have learned a lot about what I should and should not be eating.

Yetta has also shared about the importance of exercise and put into perspective in a blog post the notion that we should be doing 10,000 steps per day,  a number that is apparently arbitrary and not based on science. After reading her blog post I lowered my step goal from 10,000 steps per day, which always seemed unachievable, to 6,000 steps, and I have found that this goal is much more achievable. I seldom came close to the 10,000 per day but today I am blowing past the 6,000 every day and many days I'm topping the 10,000. My average steps per day have actually increased greatly since I lowered my daily step goal! Physical health is important as well as mental health.

https://yettablair.com/

In any case, that's a rather long dissertation on what is going on with me and with Arbor Doctor. In a word, Margin.

Please let us know if you need anything or have any questions. We are glad to help.