Collection: Our Story and Our Mission
Family owned and operated. Deblen is the combination of the owners names, Deb and Len, who have operated in Minnesota since 1967. Len does the R & D for the company, enhancing our program every year to keep up with the changing needs of trees and yards. Caleb, their son has grown up in the tree industry learning from his parents, and handles the on-site diagnosis, scheduling, and the day-to-day managing of Deblen. Working as a family, Deblen the Tree Doctor takes care of thousands of Minnesota trees each summer.
Len began his tree career in the 1960's as a teenager after he moved out to the Redwoods in California from Pine River, Mn. He worked on a crew that cleaned up dead Redwood trees since he refused to cut down a live tree. After moving back to Minnesota, he started trimming trees in 1967 with his new found experience.
Over the decades of doing tree trimming and removal, Len never felt right cutting trees down that had been damaged or sick, he wanted to find a new way of working on trees to save them when possible. He remembers the many times seeing homeowners cry when he would have to cut down a beloved tree. In the late 70's, he began investigating and studying tree disease and insects. Eventually after combining his efforts with other key individuals in the fields of microbiology, horticulture, and arborism, Len has developed the best way to save trees. The Deblen way.
After selling the tree service equipment in the mid 90's, Deblen focused 100% on tree preservation and has developed a unique and effective tree medicine program that no one else can match. It is all we do, and our success in helping trees drives us to save as many trees as we can.
Being Minnesota's original tree doctor has allowed Deblen to be able to say: "We Save Sick Trees", and it has made so many people happy. Many clients are desperate to save that old tree that gets sick and are so relieved to see it improve season after season from Deblen's treatments. We believe cutting a tree down should be the last option.
We added Lawn Fertilizing to our list of services because conventional lawn chemicals hurt trees, and as tree doctors, we respond to chemical burns to needles and leaves many times a summer, as lawn care companies continue to spray more powerful toxic products. Lawn fertilizing has become a dirty word to many homeowners because of the damage it does to lakes, rivers, the soil, pollinators, and wildlife. It also hurts people, pets, and the air we breathe. Deblen's all natural lawn feeding program restores the soil, the microbiome, cleans up the water, invites beneficial insects, plants, and pollinators to the yards we treat.
Our Mission: Trees, plants, and our soil are important, they clean and cool the air, maintain balance, and without them the earth will die. We will not apply poisonous chemicals, pesticides, fungicides, or antibiotics/herbicides. We also will never use products containing sewage, animal waste, blood-bone-feather meals, and other "organic" ingredients, as these are full of toxic byproducts and poisons. These are not proper tree medicine, and there is always a better natural method. Natural tree medicine is the only method that helps the tree at the source of the problem. Treating symptoms only with pesticides does not work, since it is only a temporary measure that actually hurts the tree. We treat the WHY, not the WHAT. Soil/root health is always the "WHY".
Deblen will only use our own proprietary custom blends combining plant based, tree and soil friendly ingredients that are safe for the earth and everything in it. Balance the soil, balance the earth.
We believe the more homeowners that adopt our way of yard care, the cleaner our lakes, rivers, and yards will be. Happy trees and lawns make happy people.