Top Tree Topics

Dormant Season Services

Fall is a time when your trees begin to close up shop for the winter and it is also a great season to get your trees in
shape for the next spring. When trees are without their leaves it is an ideal time for your arborist to safely prune
them and it is also a great time to protect your trees from harmful insects that spend the winter residing on the bark
and branches. Contact the arborists at Nels J. Johnson Tree Experts Inc. to care for your trees this season.

Pruning is a tree maintenance practice that is necessary to maintain healthy trees and a safe property. Pruning
is done primarily for three reasons: Safety for people and targets below, removing branches and limbs for the health
of the tree, and improving the overall aesthetics of the tree. Pruning can include removing deadwood and livewood
from a tree.

Three Reasons to Prune

Safety Pruning for safety is the most important reason for pruning trees in the urban environment. Branches and limbs that have the potential to fall and cause injury must be removed. Safety pruning can also include removing branches that interfere with utility lines and block sightlines. It is important that limbs are removed in a manner that minimizes their regrowth to avoid becoming hazards again.

Health Pruning trees for health reasons involves removing branches that are diseased or infested with insects to protect the remaining tree. Thinning the canopy to promote air flow can reduce the occurrence of many foliar diseases. Health pruning can also entail the removal of crossing or rubbing branches. Pruning trees to encourage a strong structure is best done on young trees and is difficult to correct on older trees.

Aesthetics Pruning trees to improve the appearance of a single tree or to encourage the uniformity of several trees is common practice in urban forests. This can include removal of a few limbs or enhancing the entire form of the tree by removing several. Decisions for aesthetic pruning should be made by a Certified Arborist to ensure the pruning does not create safety or tree health problems for the future.

Dormant Season Sprays are a way to manage insects on trees in a environmentally sound way. Dormant oils are a highly refined petroleum product, similar to baby oil, that is sprayed on the trunk and branches of trees once they lose their leaves. This treatment provides excellent control for all insects that spend their winter on the branches and bark crevices of trees.

The most common insects controlled with dormant sprays are:
• scale insects
• egg masses of devastating caterpillars like gypsy moth, webworms, and cankerworms
• spider mites
• aphids