Are You Prepared for
Hurricane Season?
Pruning for Hazard Prevention
by Kate Odell, Licensed Arborist
It seems like once a week, we are hammered by another thunderstorm. And what does that mean for trees and your property? More potential hazards. 

Every time we get some good gusts, do you find your yard full of fallen sticks and twigs? That’s a great sign from the tree that it has accumulated deadwood in the crown, and it should be cleaned out before the larger pieces start to fall. 

Do you have a particularly tall tree on your property that stand high above everything else in sight? It may be a great candidate for lightening protection. Most trees that are struck by lightening either die or suffer extreme structural damage and need to be removed, which can easily be avoided. 
Do you have trees with multiple trunks or branches with narrow branch angles? These are structural deformities that should have been resolved much earlier in the tree’s life, but a cable can help avoided branch failure. 

But what if you don’t have large trees on your property? Just because they aren’t tall now, doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future. As a rule of thumb, some of the most important pruning that will ever happen on a tree is done within the first 15 years of its life. 

There are certain things that can never be avoided, like deadwood accumulation or the ultimate height of a tree, but we can dictate the branch structure early on, through structural pruning, to create and foster a strong, damage resistant tree later in life.
Did You Know?
Career Opportunities
Come work with us!
Work for us and we’ll give you more than a job; we’ll give you the opportunity to excel and the support to succeed. We offer competitive pay, paid vacation, holidays, sick time and medical coverage.