Tree Trimming & Pruning in Dayton, OH

Tree trimming and pruning in Dayton is mostly preventive work. A well-pruned shade tree sheds wind instead of catching it, keeps its limbs off the roof and the service wires, and is far less likely to drop a branch on a car during a summer thunderstorm. Good pruning removes the right branches at the right point and leaves a tree that looks natural. Bad pruning, especially topping, leaves stubs that rot and a mass of weak sprouts that break more easily than the limbs that were cut.

How a good cut is made

The ANSI A300 standard, the industry reference for tree care in the US, calls for cuts just outside the branch collar, the slightly swollen ring where a branch joins the trunk. That is where the tree is best able to seal the wound. Large limbs are cut in three steps so their weight does not tear bark down the trunk. As a rule, no more than about a quarter of the live canopy should come off a mature tree in one season; taking more stresses the tree and invites decay.

Common pruning jobs around Dayton

Silver maples, planted widely in older Dayton neighborhoods because they grow fast, tend to form long, heavy limbs with weak attachments, and they benefit from end-weight reduction. Pin oaks and red oaks need clearance pruning over streets and drives as their lower limbs droop. Honeylocusts and young street trees need structural pruning early, to pick one main leader and space out the scaffold limbs. And many older yards simply need dead wood removed and branches lifted off the roof and gutters.

Timing for oaks and other species

Oak wilt occurs in Ohio, and the sap beetles that spread it cannot get into a tree without an open wound. For that reason the common Midwest advice is to avoid pruning oaks from April through October and to do it from November through March, unless a limb is broken or hazardous. Maples and birches may bleed sap if pruned in late winter; this looks alarming but does not harm the tree. Dead or storm-broken limbs can come off any time.