Strong, healthy, and tall trees look best on your property. In order for this to happen, you need to properly maintain them from the beginning in order to help them grow and prosper. But this can be hard to do if you don’t know what you are doing or don’t have the time. In order to keep them in excellent condition, they require proper pruning and trimming. In order to ensure this, a variety of techniques can be done. Our team at Five Star Tree Services wants to go over some tips for tree pruning and trimming.
Reasons You Should Prune & Trim
There are many benefits that trimming and pruning your trees has, both for your tree and for you.
Reasons for Your Tree
The Health of Your Tree
Think of tree pruning and trimming like going to the doctors and the hairdresser. You are able to check if your tree has any diseases, infestations, or is dying while you are up close and pruning. If you catch these things early enough, you can actually save your tree by removing certain limbs and branches. Trimming and pruning also helps to thin out the crown of the tree, allowing better sunlight filtration and airflow. If you find any branches that are crossed and rubbing against each other, the weaker one needs to be removed.
The Safety of Your Family
If there are any broken or damaged branches in your tree, they can fall without warning, making it hazardous for anyone under the tree. Regularly trimming these branches will prevent them from falling. Any branches by utility lines must be cleared away as well. If one falls on a line, it can take out the power for your house and potentially your neighbors as well, creating an even bigger problem that not only affects you but the people surrounding you.
Reasons for You
The Aesthetic
If you like to show off how lovely your yard and gardens are, keeping your trees pristinely trimmed and shaped is a great way to have a beautiful overall aesthetic. Your curb appeal will be greatly enhanced when you have well-maintained trees displayed. But you will need to be careful to not drastically change the shape or size of the tree when pruning, as this can harm the tree.
Pruning Tips
There are three methods you can implement when pruning your tree, each should be carefully considered before utilizing.
Thinning The Crown
If your tree is too full and dense, you can thin it out. When doing so, make sure to evenly space out lateral branches, particularly in younger trees. If there are any branches that cross over each other or rub together, the weaker one should be removed. While thinning, keep under a quarter removed at any one given time. Any more removed and you can harm or kill a tree.
Reducing The Crown
While examining branches to be removed, if you see a branch and over half the foliage needs to be removed, you should simply remove the entire branch at this point. Only when it’s absolutely necessary should the crown of a tree be reduced.
Raising The Crown
This refers to where the height of the lowest branches start. If your tree is overhanging something like a sidewalk, you need to make sure pedestrians are able to comfortably walk under it and the clearance is high enough. Make sure to keep 2/3 of the tree’s height with live branches. If you remove too many branches from the bottom of the tree, the stem can be affected.
Trimming Tips
Hire Professionals
During the winter months is the best time to hire professional arborists to trim your dormant trees. It is possible to trim your trees at any time of the year, but for the least amount of stress on your tree, winter is best and most advisable.
Branch Size
The size of the branches you want removed is important to consider. A diameter of 5cm is ok to remove but anything larger might not be the best to remove.
Branch Shape
Look for the shape of the branches. Only trim branches that have a weak, narrow V shape. Keep any branches with durable U shapes.
Easy VS Hard to Trim Branches
If you want to make sure to not have visually unpleasant scars on your tree, manage your tree by trimming away young branches. Make sure you don’t trim branches that are too long to too close.
How Five Star Tree Services Can Help
Our team at Five Star Tree Services would love to help you have healthy, happy, strong, and aesthetically pleasing trees in your yard! Tree trimming can be an art, as well as a science. If you want to make sure everything is done properly, make sure to give us a call at (416) 990-3355 or our tree pruning services in Toronto!