What is Plant Health Care Management? Traditionally, plant care programs sprayed whether or not pests were present. This was a reactive approach to maintaining healthy plants without taking into consideration the plant's actual health and needs and the surrounding environment. Plant Health Care Management is a new proactive approach in the green industry that is based on the premise that plants, like humans, grow and survive best when their needs are met. Understanding plant health is the same as understanding one's own health. Proactive plant care can be compared to today's focus on preventive healthcare for people. Plants, like humans, possess their own system of natural defenses. When a plant's needs are met it will grow vigorously and strong, and it will use its own defense system to ward off the majority of pests it encounters. In other words, healthy plants generally have less trouble with pests than plants growing in stressful environments. Plant Health Care focuses on the plant not the pest with the ultimate goal of maintaining healthy vigorous plants. When Neal's Tree Experts' arborists survey your property, we look for any and all contributing factors that may be causing your valued plants to suffer. Factors such as the wrong plant for the location, a lack of adequate sun or water, bad planting techniques, soil compaction, insufficient nutrients and finally the presence of insects and pathogens. Research shows that as much as 90 percent of insect and disease problems can be attributed to deficiencies in basic growing conditions. Through methods such as pruning, mulching, fertilizing, and small-scale spot spraying with environmentally safe products, we can preserve your valuable trees and shrubs for years to come.