The Complete Handbook of Trees
For professionals, businesses, and serious hobbyists who need to select, install, maintain, and profit from trees
by Alumigogo Books
non-fiction
The reference handbook for professionals and serious hobbyists: how to specify, install, maintain, and profit from trees with concrete, evidence-based knowledge.
About this book
Trees are one of the most consequential and long-lived investments a property owner, municipality, or business can make—yet most people choose, plant, and maintain them without solid technical knowledge. This handbook fills that gap.
Written for landscape architects, arborists, contractors, property managers, and serious hobbyists, The Complete Handbook of Trees treats trees as a practical category with measurable performance criteria, specific failure modes, installation best practices, and real business models. You'll learn how to specify trees by climate and soil, understand the actual costs of establishment and long-term care, diagnose and fix common problems, navigate the supplier landscape, and identify where the money is in a tree-related business.
This is not a gardening book or a field guide. It's a working reference—grounded in concrete examples, data, and professional practice—for anyone who needs to make smart decisions about trees and wants to avoid costly mistakes.
Reader Reviews
Kathleen Green
★★★★★Found this really useful for my property management background—Chapter 1 alone clarified why so many of our trees have failed to establish properly, and the maintenance section gave us concrete checklists to audit our current stock. My only gripe is that I wish there were more regional case studies in Chapter 3, since our climate is pretty specific and some of the examples skew Northeast. Still, this is the reference I reach for now instead of Googling.
Karen Harris
★★★★★As a landscape architect who's spent 20 years making spec sheets and fighting with contractors and nurseries, this is the book I wish existed when I started. Chapter 1 cuts through the noise—it's honest about cost, timeline, and failure modes without being cynical. The supplier chapter saved me hours already. Every page actually means something.
Kevin Robinson
★★★★★I run a small nursery and have been in this business for a long time, but this handbook is exceptional. The business chapter and the specs breakdown are exactly what I need to talk to contractors and designers in their language. Not a single page of filler. I'm already using it to train new staff on what clients actually need to know before they buy.
Edward Anderson
★★★★★Good resource overall and I'll keep it on my desk, but I feel like the book assumes you already know a lot about soil science and horticulture basics. Chapter 1 jumps into concepts like soil pH and mycorrhizal colonization pretty fast without much scaffolding, so a true beginner might get lost. That said, if you have any professional background in landscaping or gardening, you'll get a ton out of this.