Released On 13th Dec 2023

How To Tell If A Tree Needs Pruning

Do you have a tree in, or overlooking your garden that you always wonder about? Maybe it has a big dead branch hanging at the top, or you notice that every time it gets a bit windy, smaller branches and chunks fall into your garden. Or maybe you’re just wondering how healthy that tree really is? It’s the time of year when we start seeing dying and unhealthy trees, and how we could prevent any nasty accidents. One of the easiest ways to do this is with routine maintenance and pruning. So today, we wanted to share with you a few reasons why you might prune a tree, and how to do it.

Why Would You Prune A Tree?

Trees have been around for millions of years and they’ve done just fine, so why would we need to interfere and prune them? Well, there are a few reasons:

Get Rid Of Weakness And Hazards: One of the main reasons people choose to prune a tree is to protect their home, their property of their neighbours gardens. Trees with weak branches, cracks or other visible weaknesses can cause a lot of problems, especially during the windy season. This is the number one reason to get a tree inspected and pruned.

Strengthen The Tree: If you want to keep your tree as healthy as possible, a good pruning is essential. Think of it like a haircut - it trims off the dead ends and gives new growth space to develop. It also allows you to control the shape of the tree, giving it a stronger structure for the future.

Beautification: Of course, you could have planted the tree in the first place because you wanted a beautiful focus piece for your garden. If this is the case, you want to make sure it grows in the most natural, aesthetically pleasing way. Regular pruning allows you to keep your tree looking healthy and beautiful throughout the year.

More Sunlight: Is the tree blocking the light into your garden, or worse into your house? You could consider pruning the tree to thin the canopy and let more light through.

Doing It Yourself

You might think that pruning a tree is a simple thing. Get up a ladder with some sheers or loppers, snip snip, job done. But there’s a real science to it, and doing it wrong can actually damage the tree. And as a home pruner, you would only be able to do minor maintenance, since true lopping and pruning usually requires a qualified tree surgeon with a lot of specialist equipment. But you can do it, if you’re willing to put in the effort to learn how to do it properly. And now is the right time to try too, since the best time to prune a tree is during its dormant period in the winter months.

Hiring A Professional

Of course, we’d recommend you hire a professional to take care of your trees. There are a lot of advantages to hiring a professional landscaper to maintain your trees, including:

Safety: If you have large trees, particularly species like oak and willow, then pruning them can be a dangerous job. You might not want to risk injury by doing it yourself.

Tools: There are a lot of specialist tools involved in pruning trees, especially if you need to take off large branches. To rent (and then learn how to use) this equipment yourself could cost you a small fortune. But a professional landscaper has all of the tools and knowledge on hand, and it’s all rolled into their fees.

Liability: If your trees are too close to your house, or your neighbour’s house, then you might not want to risk the damage pruning could cause to the property around the tree as limbs and smaller branches fall. An experienced landscaper will be fully insured, and know how to prune your tree without causing any damage to property.

Knowledge: Learning how to prune your own tree takes a lot of learning. You might not want to invest that much time into learning how to do it yourself.

CMA Garden design, we’re spending a lot of time now taking care of trees. Now that it’s the dormant season, we’re trimming long limbs, removing dead ones and even dead wooding the ones that really need a severe prune. If you have a tree that’s been causing issues over the summer, or is looking a little worse for wear, we’d love to help. Just get in touch with us today and book in your free consultation. All it’ll cost you is a cup of tea!