EACH SEASON REQUIRES MAINTENANCE
TREE CARE
Tree care is a seasonal necessity for those of us living in Denver, CO and the surrounding areas. This region is an arid grassland which provides a very tricky environment for tree growth and maintenance. Knowing what to do for your tree, and when to do it can significantly help prolong and enhance their life. Elevated Tree Care is happy to provide some general “best practices” guidelines for the region:
Winter
- Fruiting trees such as crabapples, apples, plums, pears, hawthornes and cherry trees are best pruned in the winter to reduce the spread of fire blight. Fire blight is a bacterial disease that is very common in Colorado and surrounding areas. It can spread through openings in the trees from pruning, breakage or pests. If you wait until winter, these trees will be dormant, which is essentially plant hibernation. During these times metabolic rate slows down immensely, which helps with slowing the spread of fire blight.
- American Elms are also best pruned during the winter. This helps with preventing disease such as Dutch Elm Disease and insects such as scale.
Spring
- During spring it is beneficial to prune most trees in Denver, CO and surrounding areas. In spring, plants begin to put a lot of energy into leaf and flower production. If the tree is pruned effectively then the plant now has more energy to distribute to fewer branches. This can result in large flower production and less die back potential. Also, when trees leaf out they become much heavier and tend to hang lower than they do during the winter. Early spring is your last chance to raise any low hanging branches before they interfere with the house, sidewalk, roads, fence, wires, etc.
Summer
- Summer is the best season to prune trees that have a large amount of deadwood. It is easiest to identify what is dead and what isn’t for both the customer and the arborist. This provides the best opportunity for getting as much deadwood out of a healthy tree as possible. Also, this is the best time for removals because all trees should have leaves on them. If they do not bear leaves during summer then it is most likely dead and risky to leave standing if anything is around it.
Fall
- The best time to prune trees that are becoming heavy on the tip ends is in fall. If a weight reduction prune is performed on the trees, it will be less likely to have breakage during the snowy months. If heavy/ dense trees are bearing leaves during an early fall or late spring snow, there is a high chance of breakage. That is why it is important to get your trees trimmed before it is too late!
