TreeLife Expands with Newest Team Member
August 12, 2024
Meet Jordan
After graduating from California State University San Marcos in 2017 with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a minor in Business, Jordan began his career in the tree care industry.
He started as an entry level tree worker and plant health care technician. After nearly two years of field operations and training, he was approached with a proposition to create a tree health care department for a local tree care company.
After successfully creating a thriving department, he was then put in contact with an internationally recognized landscape organization. There he was given the opportunity to develop a tree health care division throughout their San Diego territory supporting multiple locations. Jordan quickly developed a passion for managing trees and their health; he was veritably impressed by their indelible contributions and significance to communities he was working in.
In his spare time, Jordan loves spending time with his wife and their two children. He also enjoys reading, writing poetry, camping and going to the beach.
A QUOTE FROM JORDAN:
“I am rapturously excited to join the team at Tree Life, CA, continue in their pursuit to improve the standards in the tree care industry and client relationships, drive operational efficiencies and support the company’s growth and goals in sustainability.”
A QUOTE FROM THE OWNER:
“Tree Life, San Diego’s premier provider of Plant Health Care and Consulting Arborist services, is thrilled to announce the addition of Jordan Everett to our team as Director of Operations.
Jordan’s addition comes at a time that our Plant Health Care services are surging as we provide support to some of San Diego’s premier landscape and tree care service providers.
With his deep understanding of tree biology and plant science, Jordan will be a key-player in our future development as well as providing training to our growing staff.
Please reach out and welcome him when you get a chance. Jordan can be reached by email at
jordan@treelifeca.com”
There are many forms of investigation in the professional world. Everyone has seen movies with crime scene investigations or read stories derived from investigative journalism. Many people know firsthand about the investigation that occurs when a doctor evaluates a patient. More recently, there are the computer technicians who investigate computer problems. But most people don’t know about the investigation that occurs daily in the little-known world of arboriculture. This story is about a TreeLife Investigator who was recently called out to a 'tree crime' scene. Most people would be surprised to learn that tree investigations occur regularly in many communities across the country. This story begins with a population of bottle trees (Brachychiton populneus), planted in a homeowner association parkway ten years ago, that were showing varying degrees of health decline. The management company representing the community’s board of directors wanted to know what was wrong with the trees, and they contacted TreeLife to solve the problem. An Investigator with TreeLife assessed the population of trees shortly thereafter and observed signs of secondary disorders in most of the trees. Many tree crowns appeared opaque, while others looked sparsely foliated. Leaf size was stunted on some specimens, and leaf tips were distorted and necrotic in others. The Investigator noted that all of the bottle trees had three or four “breather tubes” (aka “root aeration tubes”) placed within one foot of each trunk. The tubes were arranged in a non-uniform, non-symmetric pattern. Often sold as beneficials, “breather tubes” were known to be ineffective and generally harmful. They don’t improve soil aeration or water distribution as advertised, instead they usually lead to root and trunk damage. The TreeLife Investigator talked with a landscape maintenance account manager, familiar with the community, about the performance history of the trees. Purportedly their crowns would recover from the aforementioned secondary disorders each year only to decline or defoliate again.
Do insects and pathogens wake up in the morning, get their coffee and ponder on a balcony: “What do I feel like eating today?!” No. Quite the contrary. Trees and plants alike attract insects and disease when they are stressed in some form or fashion. Insects are electromagnetic in many ways, and pick up on vibrations present in odorants exuded by plants and other things in the environment. Disease only proliferates when conditions permit. In fact, pathogens can lay dormant in soil or debris, and are “activated” when stress provides an opportunity. Excluding invasive species, insects and pathogens are largely opportunistic, meaning they attack plants and trees that are providing an “opportunity” for them to host. Without some stress factor causing insect-attracting odorants to exude, opportunistic pests are generally uninterested in healthy trees. Moreover, pests do not “choose” their host; it is an electromagnetic phenomenon or symbiotic relationship between plant and pest. Plants and trees have been dealing with pests like fungi, bacteria and insects for millennia; and they have developed relationships of mutual sustenance, sometimes to the detriment of one or the other. Factors that TreeLife CA representatives consider when surveying any given set of trees are:
