CANOPYKEEP

The goal is to keep trees, not to take them down.

Built by working arborists, for the person who walks past the tree every day and has no way to say what they’re looking at.

Why this exists

Most trees that come down didn’t have to.

The tree that gets removed is usually the one nobody looked at for three years. By the time a thinning crown is obvious from the driveway, the choices have narrowed to a bucket truck and a stump grinder. Caught two seasons earlier, a lot of those trees are still standing.

What’s missing in that gap isn’t expertise. It’s attention. An arborist sees a property once; the person who lives there walks past that tree every day and notices things constantly — with no way to turn any of it into a name, a timeline, or a reason to act.

CanopyKeep closes that gap. Point a phone at what you noticed and get a real answer back, early enough that keeping the tree is still on the table.

The tool

One photo, and a name for what you’re looking at.

Type a symptom into a search box and you get ten pages about “common tree diseases.” None of them are looking at your tree. CanopyKeep is: photograph the spotted leaf, the split bark, the beetle under the mulch, and it comes back with a named condition, how urgent it is, and what to do this week.

Three tools, one page. Diagnose reads a symptom. ID names a species from three photos — the whole tree, the bark, a branch. Age turns a tape measure around the trunk into a year and a growth curve. Alex, the arborist voice built into every result, takes the follow-up questions.

It’s free because the hard part was already paid for. CanopyKeep is the homeowner half of ArbKeep, plant health care software for working arborists — the same diagnostic bench, pointed at the person standing in the yard rather than the one billing for the visit.

The practice

Written by someone who walks the rows.

I’m an orchardist. Most of what I know about trees came from spending years with the same ones — the walk at the end of the day, looking for what changed since yesterday. Nothing about that is clever. It’s just time, paid in attention, and it is what catches a problem while it is still small.

Technology is how that walk reaches more trees than one pair of hands ever will. It doesn’t replace the looking; it hands the looking to everyone who owns four trees instead of four hundred. And it keeps getting better at it — year over year the tools close in on what every stakeholder of a tree actually needs, the homeowner and the arborist and the tree itself.

That’s the whole bet. Save more trees than we take down.

What it runs on

Measured trees, not rules of thumb.

Every number on the screen comes from somewhere. Here is all of it.

Age & growth
The USDA Urban Tree Database — roughly 14,000 measured street and park trees across 17 climate regions, and the same data behind i‑Tree. It will not guess: no species in the tables, no number on the screen.
Climate region
Growth curves are calibrated per region, so the tab asks where the tree is before it answers. The same red oak puts on twice the trunk in Georgia that it does in Minnesota. Naming a state is enough; GPS is never required.
Diagnosis & identification
A vision model reads the photo against an arborist-written brief, and every answer carries a confidence level. When it is not sure, it says so and hands you to Alex rather than picking something that sounds decisive.
Who builds it
David All — owner and arborist, Upper Arlington Tree Company, and founder of ArbKeep, the health record for trees. Columbus, Ohio. The prompts, the severity language and the “call someone” threshold are written by someone who does the work.
Cost
Free. No account, no card, no trial clock. Add it to your home screen and it opens like an app.
Where it hands off

A photo can’t see roots. Knowing that is the point.

Most of what kills a mature tree happens underground — girdling roots, a trunk buried too deep, compaction from equipment that came through years ago. No camera reaches it. So CanopyKeep works inside what a photo genuinely supports: leaf spots, cankers, rusts, borers, scorch, most insect damage, and the species itself.

And it says out loud when the answer is on the other side of that line. That sentence is the most valuable thing here — it arrives while the tree is still savable, and getting the right person to it is the difference between a treatment and a removal.

Get a real arborist to it.
Tell us where you are. When a vetted arborist covers your area we connect you — with the case already worked up, so the first visit starts from the diagnosis instead of from zero.
Find an arborist near you Are you an arborist? ArbKeep Pro →
Common questions

The things people ask before they take the photo — and after.

Something is wrong with my tree

Why is my tree dying?

Usually roots, water, or both — and usually slower than it looks. Scratch a thin twig: green under the bark means it is still alive.

Why are my tree’s leaves turning brown?

Brown edges on otherwise green leaves is drought or heat. Spots that spread, or leaves dropping while still green, is more likely fungal or insect.

What are the spots on my tree’s leaves?

Most leaf spots are fungal, cosmetic, and outgrown by next season. The ones worth acting on keep spreading into new growth or arrive alongside dieback at the branch tips.

Why is my tree losing leaves in summer?

Early leaf drop is a stress response, not a disease by itself. If it starts at the top or on one side, look at the trunk and the roots before the leaves.

Is my tree dead or just dormant?

Scratch a pencil-thick twig with a thumbnail. Green and damp underneath is alive; brown and dry the whole way round, on several twigs, is not.

Can you tell what is wrong with a tree from a photo?

Leaf spots, cankers, rusts and most insect damage, yes. Roots are behind a lot of decline and a photo cannot see them, so the answer says which part it is sure about.

What tree is this?

What tree is this?

Three photos beat one: the whole tree, the bark up close, and a branch. Leaf shape alone is ambiguous; leaf plus bark plus branching usually is not.

How do I identify a tree by its leaves?

Start with how they attach to the twig — in opposite pairs, or alternating — because that one detail rules out most of the list. Shape, edge and veining come after.

Can you identify a tree by its bark?

Sometimes. Shagbark hickory is unmistakable; most young bark is not. Send it anyway — the answer tells you how sure it is.

How accurate is tree identification from a picture?

Genus nearly always, species most of the time. Cultivars and hybrids are the hard cases, and it says so instead of guessing.

How old is my tree?

How can I tell how old a tree is without cutting it down?

Measure around the trunk at 4½ feet up, divide by π for the diameter, and run that through growth curves for the species. No coring, no counting rings.

How do I measure a tree’s diameter?

Run a tape around the trunk at 4½ feet above the ground and divide by 3.14. Measure at the base instead and the root flare inflates every number that follows.

How fast does a tree grow?

Depends on the species and on where it stands. The same red oak puts on twice the trunk in Georgia that it does in Minnesota — which is why this asks where the tree is first.

How big will my tree get?

The estimate projects trunk, height and spread out to 20 years for your species and climate region. Read it as a range drawn from measured street trees, not a promise.

How accurate is a tree age calculator?

Most multiply diameter by a single growth factor for the species and stop there. This runs the USDA Urban Tree Database — measured street and park trees, the data behind i‑Tree.

What if my species is not in the list?

Roughly one tree in four falls outside the tables, and the tab says so rather than estimating anyway. Ask Alex instead — a conversation can work from a species the tables cannot.

The tool itself

Is CanopyKeep free?

Yes, and there is no sign-up. Diagnosis, identification, age estimates and three follow-up questions all cost nothing.

Why does it ask where the tree is?

Age estimates need it, because growth curves are calibrated per climate region and a region-less estimate is a confident number about a different tree. Naming a state is enough; you never have to share GPS.

What happens to my photos?

They go to an AI model for the read and stay with the case so it can be reopened later. What is kept and for how long is in the privacy policy.

Can I use it without the app store?

Add it to your home screen from the browser’s share menu and it opens like an app. There is nothing to install and no account to make.

Does this replace an arborist?

No. It is a first read — enough to tell a cosmetic problem from a reason to call someone, and it says plainly which one you have.

Open the tool