MIKE HUGHES uses a skid steer in late August to grade the land for his new facility on U.S. Route 1, across from Casco Bay Yachts, just yards from the Yarmouth town line. Hughes hopes to have the new storage space and office up and running by the end of the month.

A ny story about arborist Mike Hughes needs to be more focused on the reader and his or her trees than about the state’s only board-certified arborist, Hughes insists.

Hughes, after all, has a keen interest in the health of trees and other plants, regardless of whether he is tending to them or not. He provides tips on the subject in “The Notes,” a weekly publication out of Yarmouth.

“I love it when people take an active interest in their property, and to reduce the amount of chemicals that they use,” Hughes said. “It’s going to be a huge issue in this state.”

Hughes runs Hughes Inc., Arbor & Land Management. The Yarmouth resident, who has been parking his equipment at a farm in Yarmouth, will move everything to a shop on U.S. Route 1 in Freeport, just across the Yarmouth town line. He plans to be up and running by the end of the month.

He will build an arboretum of plants outside the shop, and also will have an informational sign that will change in content, and feature when to plant certain things, and what insects might be of concern at that time of year.

Hughes is the only registered consulting arborist, which allows him to do appraisals, in the state.

“The people on the Maine coast have been very friendly and welcoming to me — a great many of my customers were met on their doorstep with a business card,” he said. “I could not have succeeded without their support.”

Hughes is busy — he gets frequent calls from property owners from Kennebunkport to Wiscasset. People want “site solutions,” he says.

“I am almost completely involved in the treatment of trees, meaning pruning, plant health care and some landscaping,” he said. “The typical need is, ‘what on earth is wrong with my trees, and how can I make my property lower maintenance?’”

Some property is new, but most is “wellestablished” coastal sites. Instead of a “bunch of spraying and treatment,” Hughes prefers to change the composition of the growth, by thinning out and phasing out certain plants and trees.

“Most people are very, very concerned about treatments,” he said. “I do spraying, but I don’t want to. I come across a lot of dying trees. There’s too much spraying. I prefer to phase in different plants — bring in flowers or certain insects, or native trees.”

Hughes earned a degree in forestry from Penn State University, and has been a certified arborist for 28 years. He ran a business in Colorado for some time, then he and his wife, Robin, moved to Maine. Having grown up on the East Coast, he had vacationed in Maine.

“It was one of my favorite places,” he said. “I missed the ocean.”

Mike and Robin Hughes have two sons. Ty is a graduate of the University of Maine at Farmington, and Chase recently graduated from Yarmouth High School.

lgrard@timesrecord.com