Our expertise comes from over twenty years of experience working with trees. Most people think a tree service company most often cuts down trees, but our most frequent work is done to trim or prune trees to make them more aesthetically pleasing. The resulting tree also lives longer because it is healthier.
Trees should be pruned when they are young so they can establish balanced branches. Without pruning, the branches could crowd together and strain the distribution of resources.
We use many different methods of tree trimming, depending on our customer's goals. The method could also be determined by the age of the tree or size of tree. The season of the year could also affect our decision on which method to use.
The most common method of pruning trees is simple crown cleaning. We clean up the dead branches getting in the way of growth. We also remove areas of growth that could eventually be problematic. Thinning branches in addition to removing the dead ones would be called crown thinning. This increases light penetration to fuel the internal leaves with growth. It can also reduce the risk of wind damage in storms. During thinning, we take care not to create "lion tails" by clearing more internal limbs and leaving the ends full.
We provide crown raising to assist those in urban areas with thinning or removing the bottom portion of the tree creating clearance for power lines or road signs. Vista pruning is closely related as it is used to maintain or create a view out of a window or through the woods.
We use reduction techniques when the tree needs to be reduced in size. This is a little harder because it has to end up looking proportionally the same as before, just smaller. We take the limbs and cut them back to their laterals. We then need to eliminate no more than one fourth of the foliage. Some species of trees do not tolerate this method.
Heading, or topping is when we cut the limbs all the way back to where it cannot add limbs to look normal. The tree ends up sprouting small branches directly from the limbs that were cut. The tree will not function or look the same after this so we do not recommend this service and do not like to do it.
If a tree experiences storm damage or has been harmed or cut in any other way, we help our customers do a restoration. First we remove all dead branches, stubs, and water spouts. Then we choose one of two or three main trunk branches to become the new main trunk from which the tree will now grow. This will eventually make the crown appear more natural looking. A tree undergoing restoration will have to be trimmed much more frequently that other trees since it constantly needs to be evaluated on form and growth to insure the most natural state possible.
