When I tell people I climb trees for a living they sometimes ask, “What do you do during the winter?” I can’t tell whether they think I don’t want to work in the cold, or whether they think one shouldn’t prune trees during the winter. Neither is true.

(Well, maybe the first has some truth when the wind is blowing and I have to climb. That does get cold.)

But, in fact, late winter is the best time to prune most deciduous trees. While deciduous trees can be pruned at any time without being endangered, there are real benefits to pruning during late winter. They be may categorized as follows: (1) For the Trees, (2) For Safety, and (3) For the Birds.

For the Trees

• Late Winter pruning enhances the tree’s ability to seal off and heal its own wounds.
• Late Winter pruning, that is a little before the buds open, maximizes growth.
• Whenever you are pruning trees you are also moving brush around. That means you might be moving bark beetles too, which can infect and spread disease to other trees. This problem is greatly reduced during winter, when most beetles are dormant. This is especially important for our ubiquitous Siberian and American elm trees. Elm trees should be pruned in winter if possible.

For Safety

• Snow loading is a major cause of breakage in hardwood trees. Heavy snowfalls are heavier than they look, and can easily break a branch that overhangs a home, driveway, or walkway. If you have a lot of dead branches or branches with weak connections, it’s a good idea to get them taken care of before a big winter storm comes.

For the Birds

• Winter pruning is less disruptive to the habitats of migratory birds. While we always try to avoid destroying bird nests, any work in or around a bird’s home tree is disruptive to the bird’s breeding cycle. But a winter nest is an empty nest. It has served its purpose; migratory birds don’t return to a nest they’ve left to fly south. They won’t be upset to find it gone.

So, there you have it, folks. As cold as it gets up there in the canopy, winter is the best time to prune. If I’ve convinced you of this I’ll be happy to get your calls, but I might occasionally regret it when the wind starts blowing.

We had very high winds last night. They’re still going on right now. And just two days ago, I did the job pictured below. It was really good timing.

This house has a large maple tree in the back yard. It had lots of large branches overhanging the roof:

I couldn’t remove all of the stuff over the house without taking too much foliage from the tree. But I could reduce it by over fifty percent. I favored the more vertical branches since they will shed snow. Snow-loading is the cause of a lot of breakage on hardwood trees. I also took out the elm on the side of the house, which was right against the foundation. Now it looks like this:

A client has two humongous ash trees in her backyard. They’re nice trees and still pretty healthy, but suffered extensive breakage during the snow and wind storms over the past year. Broken branches were hanging directly over the residential power lines, over the alley, and also over the neighbor’s yard.

Before:

After:

So, this job took a lot of climbing. One day I was in the tree for five hours, chasing down every “widow maker” I could find. It was worth it, though, as it was almost certain that one or more of these hangers was going to come loose and crush something or knock out the power.

A client in Colorado Springs wanted some storm damage removed from a beautiful maple. He asked if I could also remove some branches that were casting shade on his solar panels. I think it turned out pretty well.

Before pruning:

After pruning:

Boor Tree & Forest can even lower your electricity bill!