Freddy Hoppe - Hoppe Tree Service - 11/1/2025

Full show from the Donovan & Jorgenson Heating & Cooling Studio: Saturday, November 1st, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome into the creative Construction of Wisconsin home improvement show
on Fox Sports nine twenty and your iHeartRadio app coming
live from a very comfortable studio today live from the
Donovan and Enduring and Coolian studios. It is cozy.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, you the lights rice and down.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
The fact that you know, we told Freddy to wear
a Parker stuff and no, no problem.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Man.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
It sometime it's always a surprise.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's always a.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Surprised all vibe today.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, it's a good one today. Yeah, Spencery, I'm gonna
put a gold star in his forehead. He's got the
he's got the studio feeling awfully comfortable. Our special guest
in the perfect timing to have him in. Freddie Happy
from Hoppy Tree Service. Go to Hoppytree Service dot com
h o ppe Tree Service dot com. How you been, Freddy,

(00:49):
I've been great.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Thank you so much for Yeah, thanks for having me back.
It's always a pleasure hanging out with with you and Bingo.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
And this next hour, if we're gonna talk sports, do
you want to talk more golf and tennis or nascarcar No.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
I don't know if I want to step in the
middle of that.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I don't think you do. I have to tell you.
We had a conversation a few minutes ago that I
hit an orange ball on the golf course. This is
a tough time, especially when you hit it where I
hit it, which is mostly near trees. Kind of hard
to find that that orange ball sometimes and songboard. I
got a chance to play nine yesterday and just a

(01:31):
beautiful course and they keep it up really nice. But
anything off the fairway, it is hard to find any
ball this time of year.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Any time of year, it's hard to find the ball
that I hit. I'll say that much.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
In the water, sand, you know, stuff like that. Hey,
this time of year, fall and then winter right around
the corner. How busy are you guys at Hoppy Tree Service.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
We're busy this time of year. People are kind of
buttoning things up. We're getting ready for the winter season.
We're out doing a lot of inspections of our existing clients.
We have new clients calling in every day. So now's
a great time to go outside and take a look
at you the tree.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
That makes sense, I mean, you'd want to, you know,
before the tree gets a bitch of snow on it
and falls on your roof. Maybe take care of ahead
of time. Maybe.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, that's why we've got you in here today for
some of that, and we're going to talk a little
bit about how to protect your trees from any any snow.
Prior to that, though, let's look back in August, we
had a huge rainfall and flood in Wile, toasting in
a lot of different areas in the state. What does
something like that, an event like that do to trees

(02:41):
and to people in your business?

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, well it definitely got the phone ring in quite
a bit. You know, when you have such a weather
event like that, you know you're bound to have trees fail,
you know, and when trees fail, that gets everyone's attention.
You know, it's amazing how many trees we have around
us and how few actually fail when events happen like that. So,
like a lot of people worry about their trees, but

(03:05):
statistically they're they're very safe. But you want to get
out and inspect those trees. You know, a lot of
the trees that fell they had signs of, you know,
issues going on that could have.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Been signs of because Federal I've seen a slight presentation
and Fred does he say, you see what's wrong with
this tree. No, I don't, but eventually, but he'll say,
it'll be stuff like this. The tree's got like a
big y to it. It's like a natural separation or
two trees grow together or something like that. So you
can see us right here. There's some stress. And if
you don't put a cable around her, you don't do this,
you don't do that, it will fail. And I mean
he can see that.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Well he has said. Look he wait the fifteen minutes
we talked prior to the show and we've been on
the air now for like three minutes and he is
said twice on.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
The air, how they talked about NASCAR.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Others than NASCAR, Go out and inspect. Go look at
your trees. Don't just from your your your you know,
living room, say wow, the colors are are changing and
it's just beautiful. You need to actually inspect the tree.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
And if you're a stuccle guy, you can't be rubbing
against your house.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah, absolutely, you know. Yeah, there's it's that kind of breaks.
It helps break down the things that we look at
when we're inspecting trees. There is the stuff that the
tree needs, and then there's stuff that the client needs.
So those things aren't always the same, so we have
to look at it from both of those those angles.
So like bingle what you're referring to, you know, yeah, stucco,
you want airflow, you don't want branches hitting hitting the

(04:29):
the building, and you want to be able to see
the nice work afterwards too. So a big thing that
we do is like clearance from buildings, clearance from sidewalks,
roof lines. That's a huge part of what we do,
you know, along with you know, stuff that the tree needs,
you know, helping prevent disease issues with poor air circulation.

(04:50):
So those are yeah, two big main wall.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
When we bought that house on eighty eighth Street, I
talked a little bit about that evergreen in front of
the house and how we want take it down when
my son Matthew was probably five six years old, because
it was just it was just a baby when we
bought the house and it was getting pretty big, and
he started crying, don't take my friend away. And we
realized when he went out to play football in front

(05:15):
of our house by himself, the tree was the wide
receiver and he would throw it and the tree caught it.
Then they'd move forward and if it dropped on the
ground and the tree didn't catch it, and he was like,
that's my friend, Please don't take and it warmed in
my heart that this was who we went out and
played catch with. Well, then he went off to college.
We had to get rid of that thing because it
was so big. But it was interesting because not until

(05:39):
we started looking at pictures on when we first bought
the house did realize how much that tree had grown.
I mean, you look at it every day and you
don't realize it until the pictures from ten years prior
and you go, holy coy, you can barely see our house.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
We well, I do a lot of you know, we
got lot of water damage, plastered ceilings because of those
pine trees right next to the house. Like that they
feel the gutters. Yeah, you'll be a bunch of house
and they just it just clogs it. And people say, well,
we got those leaf cards or whatever. They won't work
with those needles, Like no, those things jamming right up.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah, and you know, and that's uh, it's a good
I love that story, Mike, because like, trees don't stay static.
They grow, you know, and they they change like that.
When that tree was planted, it might have been you know,
one you're for a chew bengo, like a spruce tree
close to the house. It might have been appropriate at
a younger age, but as it gets older, it can start,
you know, impeding on the foundation, it can start impeeding

(06:31):
on the on the roofline, clogging gutters, changing the grades,
the water's pitching towards the house. So that's just another
reason to have your your trees looked at on a
regular basis. You know, homeowners have a duty of care
that you know, they're actually obligated to do that to
make sure that there's no undo hazards on their on
their property.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
You know, living in the city Milwaukee, that the city
takes care of the trees that are you know, next
to the curb. Yeah, supposedly they did. We were there
thirty years and they I think they ruined the two
trees that we had that were actually on their property.
Maybe once.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, they have a lot of trees to look at.
You know, they have to, uh, you know prioritize things,
so you know, certain species are higher priorities for them,
certain occupancy rates of certain streets. If you're on a
busy street, that's gonna you know, garner more attention from them.
But over I think a lot of municipalities do a
really a great job with the resources they have and

(07:29):
the staff they had. But homeowners always have a you know,
a little more want than the city cannalties.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
And and and probably more than a need. But what
was what they were really good at is when a
windstorm or something that comes through and and you'd have
branches in the middle of street, and they were great.
They were right there chopping it and getting it out
of the way, and and I give them a lot
of credit for for that. Hey, this time of year,

(07:57):
and and before we get into winter, and I think
check been two, we're going to talk a lot about
what people need to understand protect their trees from heavy
snow damage because that's coming. Yeah, but this time year,
in the fall, what are you guys most busy is
with you know.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
We are doing a lot of pruning still, you know,
eliminating branches that you know could potentially fail. We're taking
care of trees health. Also, we're doing a lot of
soil treatments, making sure trees have the right nutrients that
they need in the ground to thrive, getting them ready.
You know, most trees are in an urban setting, you

(08:31):
have lawn around them, you know, and think about the
height of a tree. It's very easy for those roots
to go out at least equally to the height of
the tree out horizontally. So think about that. All those
roots need nutrients, and you have lawn over those roots.
You know, you're not getting the nutrients cycling that you
do in a forest setting. You know.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
There was Yeah, we had a birch tree that was
not doing well. They came over. This thing is like
an eight foot needle. It seemed like a real needle
that goes down by the roots. I gave us stuff
and I think I think it's going. It's a white birch,
which is kind of hard. You can go tree.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
That's one of Deb's favorites. So I'm on the on
the speed dial.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
You're on the good list. Yeah that's good.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, I've been able to stay on that good list.
So you want to stay on something, right, you want
to stay there. She's she's the best.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
And then when ever cuts a tree doesn't have to
haul it away. I keep all the wood up from fires.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Oh that that has to be a big part too.
I'm sure that there are a number of trees that
you cut down, do you guys cut those into something
people can use in the fire?

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Oh yeah, some people want firewood. But Mike, you know,
we have the urban Wood Lab. We do uh try
and find the highest and best use for these this
wood is as much as we can. You know, we
sell our wood at several different habitat for humanity restores
and we do it by appointment out of our grafting location.
So that's that's always fun seeing that that tree transform intoto.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Something that's really crazy.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Every piece is one off. Everything is. It's beautiful like
urban wood compared to stuff you get at a big
box store. I mean, it just has so much more character.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
It's really pretty looking grains and it just looks great
when you see that wood.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Hey you talked about pruning. Yeah, there's a number of
things that you do in that space. You do brush
and shrub pruning as well.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Oh yeah, we take care of shrubs, we do well.
To back up a little bit, we do a lot
of planting also, you know, and we really ramped our
planting up as kind of the Emerald Dashboard epidemic, if
you will, is is kind of on its tail end
with all taking all those tree downs, right, trees down.
We need to replace these trees, replace our urban canopy.

(10:42):
So we do a ton of planting. We do planting
of trees, we do planting of shrubs. Then we help
prune those those shrubs those trees. Like most people, you
think when you put a tree and oh, it's good
for the next five ten years. But you need to
really prune that tree and look at it early and
off often. You know, I'd say on an annual basis,
once you plant a tree, you should have someone out

(11:05):
doing structural pruning. You can avoid so many issues down
the line if you have that tree taking care of
on a regular basis. Mike, you're talking about those storms
that came through with the rain and the wind. We've
seen to be having a lot more weather events. You know.
These limbs that fail, These are defects on these trees,
or maybe not defect is the right word, but like
poor branch attachment that was all on that tree at

(11:27):
planting typically, So if you get you can take care
of those problems early and often and for a lot
less cost if you do it towards the front end
and not wait till that tree has been growing in
that same spot for ten plus years and when a
lot of those issues are hard to correct.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
That's why I said you need to call them ahead
of time, because you'll see branches shoot off a certain way,
and like I saw, he does a presentation with inspectors
on things, and you'll see that and you see a
branch like just grows off in two different directions, and
he can tell you ahead of time whether it's going
to fall or fail or what you can do to
fix it, or you know it's something you just got trimum.
So and know what I'm suggesting is you don't have
to wait for it to fall in your house and

(12:02):
then deal with your insurance car.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Don't do that.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yes, fun, you could do this ahead of time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Hey, And I don't mean to keep going back to
this house on eightieshtree, but there was a big tree
in the backyard and I can tell you that the
roots you the way I cut the grass each year
was different. Right where I had to stop and as
it was moving towards the house is there. Are you
able to help with with that? And can you predict

(12:30):
how long it's going to be before it does get
maybe into the foundation.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
We can to a certain extent, you know, and that's
what's kind of beautiful and frustrating about trees and you know,
biological organisms, you know, you can only you can kind
of have educated guesses of what's going to go on.
But yeah, I mean certain species have roots that grow faster,
that are more aggressive.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
You know.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
The big thing is roots are going to thrive or
there is the right amount of moisture and oxygen. So
with with houses and foundations, the key is making uh,
you know that grade be proper away from the house.
You want water moving away from the house. But yet
over time trees aren't static. They're they're changing. Those roots
are getting bigger, so you see trees kind of press
up over time, and then you can kind of change

(13:15):
that slope of drainage towards the house. So in those
instances you have to kind of think outside the box.
Maybe that tree, it's not the right spot for that tree,
or maybe you got to find a way of diverting
that water somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
If if you get nervous that there could be again
in that backyard. Every year that I cut the grass
was was a different all of a sudden. Instead of
you know, going to the left, I had to go
a little further, a little closer to the house, because
you could see the rood coming out of the grass

(13:47):
and it was it's moving, yeah, towards the house. Will
they eventually have to take that tree down?

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Not necessarily, I mean I have a oh it's probably
about a forty five in strim or silver maple, which
is large, mature deciduous tree, and that's probably about ten
feet away from my house. You know, I have all
the grading around the house is as good as possible.
You know, there's plenty of other soil volume for those
roots to go to. Because roots are lazy, that's one

(14:15):
way of explaining it. So they're they're opportunistic. They're gonna
go where that those good soil conditions are. So a
lot of water is not great for a root, or
no water or a lack of water is bad for
a root also, So it all depends some situations that
tree does have to come out. But you know there
are instances where we can, like, you know, strategically and

(14:36):
selectively prune roots. You know, it's never you know, root's
never gonna want to be pruned right, right, but you
know it can be done and have minimal effect on
the tree in a lot of situations. But you know,
the smaller the root, the further away from the tree
is always the better. So instances like that, you definitely
have to have someone that's qualified to know what they're

(14:57):
they're looking at and help guide you with that. I
have a clients and Wawa Tilsa we're gonna be doing
that same thing. He has a big honey locust route
going underneath his garage and we got to take a
pretty good sized root out. But you know, we did
an assessment on that tree. We looked at all the
different root flares going out, looked at the soil volume,
the health of the tree, you know, and so we
made the decision we're going to sever this larger root

(15:18):
so he can fix his garage. You know, worst case
snare trees are slow, so this you know, the tree
is not gonna die overnight, right and trees are pretty
darn tough and resilient with all the stuff that we
do to them. So it's, you know, nothing you're going
to see in a textbook taking out this large route.
But we thought outside the box, made an educated decision.

(15:39):
We're going to do it and see how it goes and.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
You'll keep an eye on it. Yeah, absolutely, See that's
the important part, right to hire you guys to come
out and look, you can tell guys like me you
need to inspect your trees. I don't know what I'm
looking at right, I just know the root's grown and
for me to make an educated guess that this thing
is not getting close to my house and the foundation
in my house and maybe we just need to take

(16:03):
this big beautiful tree that gave our backyard patio shade out.
I I you know, I need to talk to you
guys like you first. Yeah, to have people come out,
Hey do you plant? What time of the year is
the best time of the year to plant new trees?

Speaker 3 (16:20):
You know what's nice with the most of the nurseries
around here and the ones that we work with, a
lot of the stock comes in containers are bald and
burl apped, and you have the whole season to plant
those trees. So yeah, we just wrapped up our planting season.
But I mean you can pretty much go to the
grounds just about frozen. You know. The biggest direct you know,

(16:43):
determining factor is the nursery having the type of tree
that you want and the size that you want, But yeah,
we typically fire up the planting crew and in April
if the weather's nice, and yeah, I think it was
just last week we wrapped up our planting for the season.
But it's a nice long season.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
So yeah, it really is. What are you guys busiest
with now? Pruning would be it. And then come winter time,
what do you what do you guys transition?

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yeah, we worked you around. So winter is a great
time to prune. It's just a different time of the
year and a different phase that the tree is going through. Right,
you have all the leaves that are off if it's
a deciduous tree, so you can kind of see the
structure of that tree a lot a lot better, so
you can make easier decisions on and see what you're
working with a lot, a lot easier.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
One of the things I don't miss about living over
there is I was never I don't like raking and
moving leaves, and it seemed and my wife, if she's listening,
you know, will laugh. Everybody in our neighborhood's tree the
leaves would be gone, you know, first second week in November,
I'm telling you our Thanksgiving ours and people would come
by and go, wow, your your tree as if I go,

(17:53):
I know, like everybody has already gotten done with all
the raking they needed to do, and we would either
try to do it, you know, every other day once
they started falling, or we'd wait till the end and
that it was about it. I lived in a little house,
but there's a lot number of trees.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
In all the years I've been doing this. I'm a
third generation, you know, a family member running this business.
I've not met one person that said they enjoy raking.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Nobody, nobody, but you.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Know, every tree drops something. It's about you know, how
much and when. But you know, the benefits always, in
my opinion, outweigh the negatives.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Of that coming or raking, which is better for the soil?

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Oh? I mean, so you know, think about trees in
a forest where there's no there's no law, and those
trees can last thousands of years literally without any help
from anybody else. You know.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
It's a great point.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, you put trees in an urban setting, you know,
and that's when they need help from companies like our
ours and another qualified.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Let's hear you're you're here. Yeah, you know what. You
go to hoppytree service dot com. That's where you have
to go. I can tell you that. And I've been
on your website a couple of times this week. But
August does a great job on the blogs, and there's
some really interesting yeah. They and the ones that I
I've I've read here recently, August put together and I

(19:13):
can tell you that there are some really valuable information
in some of these. I I didn't go into this
thinking I was going to learn a lot about about
trees and about this time of year and about you know,
tree root systems and and you know what, why my
tree leaves are turning yellow? This kind of stuff very

(19:34):
interesting information on that website again, hoppytree service dot com.
You to get to a break other side of the
break I needed to. We need to talk about the
next fall that's coming, right or the next season that's coming,
that's winter. And there's a lot of things that I
think people have to understand, including making sure we don't
salt too much around where the trees are and what

(19:56):
that does to the trees along with a lot of
snow up on the branches. And let's make sure you
guys are ready for the winter that's coming. And nobody
better to give you the information that you need than
Freddie Happy from Hoppy Tree Service family owns since nineteen
seventy two, taking care of people and their trees, great

(20:16):
tagline for Hoppy Tree Service and Freddy is in studio
with us for the entire hour. This is the Creative
Construction of Wisconsin Home Improvement show only on Fox Sports
nine twenty and your iHeartRadio App. Welcome back to the
Creative Construction of Wisconsin Home Improvement show only on Fox
Sports ninety twenty and your iHeartRadio App. As always, coming

(20:38):
live from the Donovan and Jorgans and Heating and Cooling studios.
They're coming out to my house next week next week
to do my tune up for the furnace and make
sure that we're ready to go for the winter. And
I thank the people over at Donovan Jordan.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
That means he's changing your filter. Be if you didn't
do it.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
No, that's not what it is. They come clean it out,
get ready to go. And I did get yelled at
for the filters that I bought over at you know,
one of the big box stores for like two bucks.
They're like, no, no, you can't use it.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Vacuum off. It's fine.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, that's what I thought that there. Scott Fisher, the president,
is like, come on to give her. You know you're
you're making me look bad, and I go, I know,
I know, but I thank them. The largest employee owned
HVAC company in the state of Wisconsin. Employee owned, which
is great. Go to Donovan Jorgenson dot com.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
So it's also daily at same as time, so you
can also check your smoke detector. Do you buy take
the batteries every timmy cook, You're supposed to make sure
that the batteries are fresh.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
He is Bingo Emmans, the owner of Creative Well, he said,
hold on, are you my wife, because that's kind of
what she sounds like. Sometimes. He's Bingo Mms, the owner
of Creative Construction Wisconsin. We got a text question for
our guests. Who is Freddie Happy from Hoppy Tree Service.
By the way, I did get a text from from

(21:56):
deb saying I'm not raking.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, she's not Reacan, so she's hoping you would say that.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, well then man, so that falls on you or
Zach coming home. By the way, Jack got it. Zach
sent me some pictures and he said, hey, just you know,
we did this a couple of weeks ago and and
he went off and got married and and my goodness,
he cleans up nice.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, these pictures.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
Looked like a model, that's what he said.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
He goes, yeah, I want to call h Mike to
tell him I got married. He said, he already knew.
I said, yeah, we told we toltalbody lying on the radio.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Man, I kind of knew before heat is.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
He goes, wow, I didn't listen because six o'clock in
the morning when he was in Washington, and when we
talked about it in the radio.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Just beautiful pictures. Yeah, he looked, he looked great. And
after I said, man, you you sure clean up well.
Then the next eight text messages were all about golf.
How come we didn't get out this year? Might still
have time? Stuff like that. And I said, hey, you,
as a married guy, can you still go play? He goes, yeah, nothing,
you kidding me?

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Whatever, Just give it a little more time, a little
more time.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
This way it's coming. And now my wife's like, Archie,
it's really nice. Aren't you going to go play golf?
And I'm like, you don't want me around much? That's awesome, hey, Freddy,
this time of year, as we look winter's coming, and
during the break you said, look, with the lack of
snow that we had last year affects trees one way.

(23:18):
And if we get a boatload of snow, and you know,
we haven't had the kind of blizzards and snow that
we had when I was a kid, I don't think
unless it's in my mind and I just think, boy,
we've gotten so much, but it doesn't seem like it does.
What does that do to the trees?

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yes, Like I mentioned before, trees are kind of slow
to react, so like it's a accumulating, accumulating effect. So
throughout the year, if we're having a dry year or
a wet year, it definitely has takes its toll or
can take its toll on trees. Right, So like this year,
and we've had a couple of big rain events throughout
the summer, but overall it was pretty dry. We did

(23:57):
get some rain kind of this fall. But you know,
watering your trees, especially evergreens in the fall is definitely
highly recommended. As long as you have your your hose
out and that spigot turned on, think about giving those
trees a drink of water. I'm going into winter, you know.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Just before the first freeze or yeah, past.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
The first freeze, you know, as long as you're comfortable
having your water on and the ground's not frozen so
that water can saturate down. You know, winter burn has
been a kind of increasing issue that we've seen coming
out of winter the last few few years. So we'll
get you know, the transition of seasons seem to have

(24:36):
these bigger temperature swings. So yeah, like especially late winter,
you'll have warm winter days, trees think, oh, you know,
I'm thinking like late February here where you get a
nice warm day, trees think it's time to start pulling
moisture out of the ground, but the ground's frozen and
it can't so they can dry out. And then you
add in winter winds and then you'll get this browning
and which can obviously be bad for a tree if

(24:58):
some areas of it are are dying back.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
You know, you made a comment about trees in the
forest that nobody you know, they can last for forever basically,
and and nobody's out there doing anything to them. And
then you go in the city and and you think about,
look when you salt your walk, when you when they
when they when they come through and salt the streets
with the trees next to it. How much effect does

(25:23):
that have on them?

Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean too much salt is is going
to have a bad effect.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
You know.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
There's certain species that can tolerate tolerate that more than others.
But that's definitely another reason to like kind of water
your trees on a regular basis, especially actually in spring.
Get if you are in an area that the street
you live on uses salt, you know, you definitely want
to flush that out as best as possible in spring,
you know, and going into winter. You know, I mentioned, uh,

(25:50):
the watering. Another thing you can do is actually there's
full your applications you can put on your trees to
help retain moisture, especially on evergreens these uh, to prevent
desiccation in which is those that that burning out that
I mentioned. There's still a good opportunity to get that
taken care of this year. So a lot of people
notice kind of this natural phenomena fall seasonal needle drop

(26:11):
that goes on in this time of year. You'll see
some browning on the interior of the trees. It freaks
a lot of people out. It's a natural thing, but
that is you know, trees that have that are going
through a little bit of stress but not moving the
needle too much. But you know, evergreens definitely benefit from
these follier applications of this anti desicont spray and that

(26:33):
can help retain that moisture throughout the season, throughout the spray.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, I've got some of that, I think in my garage.
If you need to borrow some of you, just let
me know.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
I guess. I yeah, doing this as long as I have,
I guess. I feel like, you know, I calculate. It's
like I started working full times that you know, fit
in the summer is at fifteen. So it's like, good,
twenty eight years I've been doing this and and family
paid at least I did it for I've been doing
it my whole life.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, I bet. I bet when you were seven or
eight it was fun to go out.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Oh yeah, I love going out with my dad.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
And are you comfortable in high spaces?

Speaker 3 (27:09):
I am, I am. You know, I don't trust ladders,
but I trust trees.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Okay, So yeah, you got to be to do what
you do right.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, there's a certain part of it that it's hard
to teach. You have to be comfortable at at you know,
heights and awkward positions and you got to trust your gear.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah. Well, you actually do some really cool things that
parks some stuff during the summertime. Oh yeah, little kids
can go play with that equipment and go up trees
and stuff and it's always a big hit every Yeah, we.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Love doing that. We have these kid climbs event events
throughout the year. We're you know, kind of already pre
planning for next year, but it's great getting kids active,
getting them outside up in these trees, getting them to
appreciate trees. We just love people that love trees, and
you know they're they're all around us. There's you know,
science behind it, making people healthier, happier, to safer.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Do you at times find yourself trying to talk people
out of taking trees down?

Speaker 3 (28:04):
Oh yeah, all the time.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
You know.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
You know what I love doing is getting people people
comfortable around the trees that they have. You know, talking
about all these storms that we've had. Someone sees a
tree fall in the neighborhood, or know someone that had
a tree failure. It's it can be frightening, you know,
especially if if you have a large tree in a
target close by.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, want to a question from a first segment.
We never asked about it. What about somebody has a
sidewalk that's coming up or a dry weight that's coming
up from a tree. You know, the recommend you know,
you just got to cut it down or what can
you do?

Speaker 3 (28:38):
That can be tough, you know, I kind of we
did touch down that a little bit. So like it's
all case by case. So you know, in certain instances
that tree can be saved by selective root pruning, severing
that root then you know, taking that concrete or whatever
it was away and excavating the root that was underneath it.
But that doesn't work in every every scenario. So that's

(28:59):
very case by case. And like we were talking about, trees,
never like having roots cut, but sometimes that's what is
what is needed to be done. You know, on the
smaller the route, the further it is away from the
tree at the base of the tree, the better chances
of that tree thriving, continuing to thrive and do well

(29:19):
after the pruning. Like we did a big project out
at the Commodore restaurant. They had a huge you know,
well over one hundred and fifty year old baroque tree
that they had to create walkways and patios around. So
they had us come in on the front end. They
knew they had a beautiful tree, wanted to save it.
So that was great having the designers and the engineers

(29:40):
and the architects identify that and we're able to get
the tree in a good, good position health wise.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Want does it excavator to cut the tree? Or you
guys were better at cutting a tree when a tree
is in a way like that?

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Yeah, we are. We're better at it, you know, I mean,
you know, having a construction company just know that they
need to tread lightly and work diligently around those those
roots is part of the battle too.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Hey do you did? You guys do a lot in
the commercial space, like you just talked about, We do.
We do.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
We We work with a number of different construction companies
in coordination with projects that they have to do. We've
we've done a couple uh clearings of of of land
for parking lots, for athletic fields. We've helped save mature
trees around uh new fields and new buildings going in.

(30:31):
There's a cool project we did at Wawatosas High School.
A number of years back, saving a line of mature,
normy maple trees so that that we're kind of shielding
the surrounding houses from the new lights that were going up.
But it was great. Like with the the outreach we've done,
we've helped educate engineers and architects about the value of
these trees and and what should be done in advance

(30:53):
so that they're not just digging trenches over root zones
or you know, and.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Well considering tree location, yeah, is really important. Yeah, and
where you're going to put it. Hey, we got a
text and and to kind of get off off the
winter subject a little bit, was somebody a text to
ask about the mangolia tree disease.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah, the magnolia scale. So that was that's an insect
that is very specific to magnolia trees, but it can
be such a nuisance. These these insects will suck the
sap out of the twigs of the branches towards the
end it's and they ingest that that sap and they
they they spit it out essentially excrete it and it's

(31:36):
a sticky substance that gets over everything and it causes
this powdery mildew. And if it's left long enough unchecked,
it can actually they can suck so much sap out
of the twigs that they can die back. And it's
a very tough, persistent bug. To deal with a lot
of people that have magnolias, we need to actually preemptively,
you know, do treatments on that tree to kind of

(31:59):
keep that bug in. But you know, dealing with a
biological organism like that, you can have certain years where
those populations will boom, you know, and uh, just due
to the kind of the weather that we're having. So
you can be kind of doing everything right and mother
nature can throw you for a loop. So imagine if
like no care is done to that tree, how devastating

(32:19):
an event like that could be.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
It's i know, like w you know she has she
has my speed dial. She'll you still see like one
bug on a tree.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Just getting photos text over like like these dang bugs.
We got to do something about it, so, you know,
and that's what we love is like educating our clients
about what is the right time to do something.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
You don't have to wait to it's debt. You can
you can treat you ahead.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Like magnolia scale, for instance, is a tricky one because
they have certain life stages that they have to that
they're susceptible.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
She has, she loves it. But the week after those things,
the things make a big mess. Yeah. I mean I
was like, I know, you think it looks great, but
then you gotta do with them and I can't break
my truck anywhere near it, and then just it's a mess.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah, AVOCU, we're like tree counselors between husbands and wives.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
You know what I hear that? I yeah, you were
on on conference call just making sure that that Devi
and Bengal are okay. They're still holding hands. You're okay, no,
no problem with that. How many employees at Happy Tree
Servers We.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
Are right around seventy employees of our three locations. Yeah,
we we have a lot of great arborists. We have
a lot of great sales arborists. We have awesome staff
in the office.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
You said during the bran, you said, the one job
I do not want at my company's the scheduling part.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Yeah, they have. I mean they do amazing things. Kind
of putting this puzzle together. That is a good workday.
So hats off to our Emily and Abby and all
the all the staff. That's that are our West Alice
location every.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Day Hoppytree Service dot com. H o ppe Hoppytree Service
dot com three locations West Dallas, and we're the other two.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, we're in Grafton as well as Caledonia.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
So where do you Where do you spend most of
your week?

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Which I am, My office is my car, So I'm
out visiting clients, you know, helping them educate them about
their tree, making their trees safer, making them safer, making
their trees healthier, making our clients healthier through healthy trees.
So that's what I really enjoy doing, is just helping
educate people about their trees, solving their problems, and that's

(34:30):
where we really shine.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Do you miss the day of getting up and getting
you know.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
There are definitely days where I wish I could just
talk to a tree as opposed to twelve clients.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
I bet, I.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Bet, especially when when everybody's because you know, all the
phone calls, I'm sure, like in our business after a storm,
you're just like, yeah, I wish I was one of
those guys. I was sitting down a bucket eating lunch
right now.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
What I love is, you know, giving people good news,
you know, they come into an appointment worried about their
tree or a disease issue, potential disease issue, insect issue,
like tell them, Hey, you don't have to worry about this.
This is what's going on. This is when you should
take care of this. This is when you take care
of that. That is a really good day when you

(35:10):
give that good news.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Hey. I got a text from a friend of mine
who said, would you ask about about mulch before winter
around the roots of the tree. And he had dug
he had actually called me last night and said, look,
I'm online and one place said don't put any mulch
and get it away from the base and the roots

(35:33):
of the tree. And another place he read said put
three to four inches of mult around the tree. And
you said, would you ask Freddy explain which the best
direction for somebody here in southeast Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah, mulch is great. You know, it's amazing how simple
it is, a simple concept, but it can be misconstrued
and taken so many different ways. But I think of
it this way. You know, we talked about trees in
a forest doing great on their own, So what can
we do to mimic those those circumstances, right, So if

(36:06):
we can mimic what's going on on the forest floor,
it's going to be better for the trees in our landscape.
So mulch is a great way of doing that, but
done correctly. So you know, roots are going to thrive
when there's the right amount of moisture and oxygen, and
having mulch over that root system creates those great conditions
for those roots to thrive. So mulch is great. You know,

(36:29):
three to four inches of mulch is about the most
you'd want to do, you know, and you'd want to
put it as far in as far of a radius
away from that trunks as works for your landscape. You know,
the tree would love it if it came out to
the drip line, which is like the spread of the canopy, right,
But that doesn't work for every landscape, right, So even

(36:50):
if it comes out a foot or two, it's going
to have some benefits for the tree. One, it's going
to keep the string trimmer away from it, so you're
not it makes it easier to mow. It can look
really nice in a landscape, but.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
You don't want to put it right on the base, No, you.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Want to you want to see as that tree goes
into the ground. You want to see the tree get wider.
They call that the root flare. You know, if you
have a tree that looks like it's a pencil stuck
into the ground, something's wrong. Either that tree was planted
too deep or the grade was changed. So you want
to see that flare of the tree as it goes
into the ground, and you want to bring the mulch
up to that flare. You don't want to put it

(37:26):
on the flare or on the base of the trunk.
Similar like like a sided house, you want to think
of putting soil or mulch against the wood sided house, right,
the same with a tree. You don't want to put
that mulch on the trunk of that tree. It's gonna stay.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
What things What things shouldn't you do to a tree?
Like put top? So what shouldn't you add, like bricks first, top, soil?

Speaker 1 (37:45):
What is it that?

Speaker 3 (37:46):
Yeah, you don't want You don't want to change the
grade plus or minus, you know, more than three or
four inches unless you go through a lot of extra steps.
You don't want to, you know, like I said, roots
like the right amount of moisture and oxygen. So they
don't like compaction. You know, you don't want to have
you don't want to park vehicles, you know, on a
regular basis over that root zone that's gonna squish the

(38:09):
the paricles of soil, limiting the movement of water and oxygen.
So you basically come you want you want to keep
in mind moisture and oxygen in that root zone, light
and fluffy, you know, so like think of like no mold,
no no raking leaves, Like letting those leaves break down
and around the tree are great, but obviously you got

(38:29):
to balance that with having like a nice lawn. But
that's where like having the you know, mulch circles around trees,
you can kind of shred up your your leaves and
you can use those around around your trees and certain instants.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
I try to talk my wife into that one one
year where hey, let's just leave them because I think
it's really good for this. It was probably good for
the trees, but not great for the grass. I've tried
hes like, we're never doing that again. I go, I know,
I got that.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah, my wife tells me what to do in my
yard with my trees all the time, like honey, do
you know like people pay me for my tree. She's like,
it doesn't matter if Freddy.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Not in my house, man not in my house. Freddy
take the garbage out and do this to these trees.
I love that. Guys, Yes, dear, we'll get to a break.
Other side of the break will continue our conversation. He
is Freddie Happy Look Hoppy Tree Service the family owns
since nineteen seventy two. He's been in this business a
really long time. And look, if you can't hear the

(39:23):
passion in his voice when it comes to this space,
to your trees, when he talks about look, going out
and inspecting it, that's not going to do anything for
a guy like me, because I can look at it
all day and say, yeah, it looks great, I don't
really know. But to have him come out and take
a look at it, it's a whole different level, just
a whole different level. I've got a few more questions

(39:44):
for him on the other side of the break. This
is the Creative Construction Wisconsin Home Improvement Show only on
Fox Sports ninety twenty and your iHeart Radio app. Welcome
back to the Creative Construction of Wisconsin Home Improvement Show.
On Fox Sports ninety twenty and your iHeart Radio app
coming live from the Donovan and Jorganson Heating and Cooling Studios.

(40:05):
I am Mike McGivern alongside Bengo Emmons. He is the
owner of Creative Construction of Wisconsin and our special guest
man you want to know anything about trees, Freddie Happy
Hoppy Tree Service is the guyograph.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
We have to bring them in a lot sooner than
just once a year.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Any questions, man, spring, we we have to bring you
back in spring. Because the amount of questions and text
messages I've gotten to ask you, I can't get through
all of them. But I promised this guy he had
a couple of trees this this spring at this house
in mekwont And he's now he's worried about rodents and

(40:42):
rabbits and and in the winter time. How to protect
these trees because as you said during the break, it
seems like these these animals sure like new expensive trees.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
And then there is a's a multi prong approach. There's
a lot of good strategies out there, but you know,
kind of physical barriers are the best, especially when you're
dealing with rabbits, dealing with deer deer, you have a
couple of different issues, right, you have buck rub in
the fall, and then you have the browsing. So it
kind of starts with like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
What's browsy? What is browsing?

Speaker 3 (41:15):
It's not a fancy one like anti desec they're eating eating.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
You notice that the three other people in the studio
look like browsing.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
All right, thank you for that little reminder. But yeah,
but deer munching on the leaves over the needles.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Maybe like a little moss iPad.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Exactly what I thought. How does that work?

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Well, it starts with, like, you know, picking the right species.
So if you have in your area you have a
lot of deer pressure, you know, you want to stick
to certain species that they may stay away from. You know,
on the evergreen inside, there's some really good opportunities species
like green giant is a western cedar. These Thusia placata
is the botanical name. Of course, I go again, Yeah,

(41:57):
I can't certain spruce trees, certain our providingsdre just naturally
stay away from. So that's that's a nice thing to
know right off the bat when you're planning on what
you're putting in.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
Hey, when when when when one of the people that
that we have in studio, you know, home builders or
if they're building a subdivision, do they contact you, a
guy like you, to say, hey, listen, we're going to
be putting four houses in this area and we want
to plant trees. What trees do you recommend? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Absolutely, I'm actually working with Winmer communities, the big apartment builders,
town center builders, and it's great creating those relationships where
we want. We have this consultive approach to working with
our clients, you know, and that's just value added when
you work with Hopy Tree Service. We're always available to
set you up for success, let you know what you

(42:49):
need to know when it comes to that planning side.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
And how much Look when you drive through some of
our neighborhoods, now you see this this color contrast and
this bright red tree now that that I asked you
about and you said, that's a high bread and that's
what this is. But do you do you go into
if you were going to be planting for Wimmer or
for a new subdivision, do you go in there with

(43:16):
with a game plan of making sure that the colors
are different and changing at different times to kind of
give that wall factor.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
Yeah, that's absolutely like one of we think of, like
what are the functional benefits of this tree? What do
we want to provide in fall? Color is definitely something
we think of. You know, we think of mature size,
We think of animal pressure. You know those trees you're
just talking about, the autumn blaze maple, you know, very
thin barred tree. Deer love to rub on that trunk,
especially uh in the fall, especially when those trees are young,

(43:45):
when that barks even thinner.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
I'm just wondering, did do you go to class to
learn all these names of trees rub on? How do
we know?

Speaker 3 (43:52):
You know that these trees just emit certain pheromones and
these maybe there is maybe there is like deer class.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
You know, invited. I've not been invited to speak there
in either of you. They don't want to know. They
don't want to come and mess with you for sure. Hey,
getting back to this buddy of mind who planted two
trees out in the Mechwan area, is there any support
that that they should be looking at prior to winter

(44:18):
with with strong winds and heavy snows. He's worried about
animals and he's worried about Look if if this, if
we get a heavy snowfall, I don't want to lose
these trees. Is there anything that they should consider doing
before the the the the you know, it freezes, the
ground freezes around the tree.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
Yeah, well, first off, making sure the tree health is
is top notched through proper watering, fertilizing if it's needed,
supplemental support through steaks, guidelines are our ways of making
sure that tree is not gonna tip over. You know,
physical barriers like fencing or plastic around the trunk of
the tree is a good way of deterring deer from

(44:57):
rubbing on the on that trunk. There's all actually animal
repellents as well. Last year it was kind of unprecedented
with them out of rabbit damage that I saw. I
saw them chewing on the base of a lot of
different species of shrubs as well as trees that I
haven't seen them rubbing on before. So the animal repellents
done this time of year can be a good tool

(45:19):
in the toolbox or deterring that damage from happening.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Hey, you got the last text regarding the guy in Mekwan.
If he wanted to have you come out and look
at the trees and talk about proper steaks and what
he needs to do with mulch and stuff. Can he
have you guys come out and consult with him? Yeah,
absolutely perfect. And I think that's really important because you

(45:42):
know he's thinking he's got to go online, and you know,
when you go online, there's fourteen answers to seven questions,
and nobody has the same question.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Can you didn't go down a rabbit hole? Try to
detern rabbits?

Speaker 1 (45:54):
One hundred percent? He is Freddie happy. You can give
them a call three little. The best way to get
a hold of them is go online and and and
spend some time on that website. It's a great website.
You can learn a lot things that you never thought of.
You know, you sit and have your cup of coffee
in the morning and go, wow, that tree looks great.
It's really grown nicely.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Make sure that it is to make sure that if
you have any questions, these are the guys that go
to Freddy's been doing this since he was three. He's
been getting paid since he was fifteen.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
And you know, and that's what's that's what Debbie calls there.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
It is, Yeah, that is one what would Debbie do?
Get that bracelet and then have have this website right
at top of mind. It's it's Hoppytree Service dot Com.
They've got seventy employees again, been around since nineteen seventy two.
Family owned and that I promise you they will take
really good carr of you. This is a really good,

(46:48):
honest guy. And if you go on their website to
read a little bit about the history of this company
and the things that they do in it. Look, they're
not just about trees. They do a lot of different
events and we didn't get into any of these trees
they do, and they teach kids to be comfortable around trees.
It's just a really good company, Hoppytree Service dot Com.

(47:10):
It's good to see you, Freddy.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Thank you so much for having me. This is a
great time. Look forward to doing it again.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
You bet Bingo.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Have a good week you too, and don't forget the
champions championship weekend.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, a YFL Youth Football Championship weekend. We're gonna talk
about that and the other side.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Don't bring a lot of left urns.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
It's a race car said, he's gonna go with you
and watch though him and Spencer are going to watch.
I'm really busy. I'm gonna just look at the trees
in my condo.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
You got you gotta reach the sources and try to
figure all these words that he was said.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, I have no I have to go back and
listen to the show.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Just do definitions of tree terms next time I'm here.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
You know it'll be uh guaranteed in the next four years,
we'll have you back then. This is di varsity diversity,
but this is the creative construction of Wisconsin Home Improvement
show on Fox Sports nine twenty in Yourheart radio app