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Pruning Your Trees and Shrubs

Pruning Trees

Proper pruning of trees improves their structural strength, maintains their health, enhances beauty, and increases their value. Proper pruning also increases the safety of your landscape and home.

Pruning becomes advisable under the following circumstances:

  • Trees that have crossing branches, weak branch unions, or other defects.
  • Branches that are dead, dying, decayed, or potentially hazardous.
  • Lower branches that interfere with people or vehicles, or block visibility of signs.
  • Branches that are growing into buildings or utility wires.
  • Limbs that have been broken by storms.

Trees with overextended limbs that may injure people or property.

Pruning Shrubs

Through the summer months is the time to do any major pruning or cutting back of shrubs. With the fast new spring growth completed, proper shrub pruning will help maintain their size and shape in addition to enhancing next spring’s flowering.

Shrubs are pruned by either heading back or thinning. Heading back is the selective cutting of the ends of branches to a bud. This procedure produces a denser shrub because it increases the number of shoots and leaves.

Thinning is the complete removal of branches back to the lateral branches, the main trunk or to the ground. Thinning gives a plant an open and natural appearance and encourages healthy new growth.

When to Prune Trees

The safe and proper removal of dead limbs or dead portions of trees can be completed during any season.  The only time you should not remove live portions of the trees is very early spring when the leaves are just beginning to grow. Once the leaves are fully grown, live portions of the trees, through proper pruning, can be safely removed without damage to the tree.

When to Prune Shrubs

To maintain and/or reduce their size and shape, prune shrubs in early to mid-summer.  To maintain and/or increase flowering shrubs, prune no later than 4-6 weeks after the season’s last flower has wilted and dropped. Complete shrub pruning by mid-October at the latest. Any later and the shrubs could be susceptible to damage from cold weather, if they have not had adequate time to regrow and harden before winter winds begin to blow.

Pruning your trees and shrubs is a very important way to preserve their health and the health of your property. There’s an art to pruning – taking a pair of clippers to your tree or shrub can do more harm than good.

Our technicians go through extensive training to adhere to ANSI A300 tree pruning standards. Then, they put that training to work pruning your trees and shrubs safely and correctly, so they stay safe and healthy.