Guardian Stone and Tree Care

About Guardian Stone and Tree Care

Fog settles low in the McDowell County bottoms on an autumn morning and burns off by nine, and by then the day's work around Nebo is well underway. Guardian Stone and Tree Care looks after the trees standing along old fence lines, over field stone, and in the front yards of the roads running out toward Marion and Morganton. Pruning is the patient half of it — small cuts placed where they belong, deadwood taken out, a young tree steered away from the wires it would otherwise grow into. Removal is the decisive half, for the hollow trunk and the limb hanging over a bedroom. When a storm rakes across the foothills, cleanup is simply cut, haul, sweep, until the ground is clear and the woodpile is stacked at the edge of the lot.