Well here's hoping this meta draws a crowd and at the end you don't arbor any ill will. I suppose if my write is worse than my bark I'll find myself rooted in trouble.
OK, before I have any more pun-gent words, let me thank my testers; Al Sisti, Larry Bray and Mark Woychick. These are good guys and wooden lead you astray. So now, gather up you pencils and erasers and "run for the forest, run!"
Whoops, I seem to have been nudge remiss....
Nudge 1] With a title like "Trees Company" what do you think you should look for in the GRID?
Nudge 2] Assuming you find what you are looking for, what is a very common next step?
Nudge 3] What was spewed out of Vesuvius that did the most damage? ]
Nudge 4] If I had ELM in the grid (which I did not) and there was also a clue for "Shade provider = Awning" what would you do with that?
Nudge 5 because people are hitting a speed bump and it is my fault] The Nature AND Law is simply a homonymic play on words of the meta answer
THE REVEAL
The five trees in the puzzle could also serve as answers to other clues:
PINE = CRAVE
CHESTNUT = OLD SAW
ASH = PUMICE
APPLE = SONY
EBONY = ELLE
Taking the first letter of those answers gives you COPSE, a small stand of trees OR, homophonically, COPS
For a graphic depiction of the solve please go to:
I was hesitant about the P until I had the other four and backchecked.
File this under "Now you tell me," but FWIW, in the the Pokemon TV show there's a character (not a Pokemon) named Ash