Tree Pruning

Regular pruning can improve the health, safety, and enjoyment of your trees. Young trees can be pruned to encourage strong form. Growing trees can be pruned to create and maintain a peaceful existence within their surrounding environment. Mature trees can be pruned to remove sections of dieback before they are shed naturally and fall indiscriminately.

Deadwood Removal – Removing dead, broken, or detached branches can prevent injury to people, pets or property should these branches blow free from the tree. It also removes the broken branch stub which serves as an obstacle to recovery as the tree works to seal over its own injury.

Canopy Elevation – Trees generally give no consideration to human needs when growing in the urban environment. We need room to walk under the trees in our yard for lawn maintenance. We need to drive under the trees that overhang our driveways. Sometimes we need clear sightlines for security purposes. “Elevating” the canopy can meet these needs by removing low limbs and trimming low-hanging branches to create the clearances required around your home.

Clearance Pruning – Continuing from canopy elevation, we often need clearance from structures to prevent damage. Maintaining clearance off of rooftops and away from walls will prevent premature wear of building materials. Maintaining space around electrical conductors running to your home will lower the chance of damage to or breakage caused by moving tree branches. Clearance between competing trees will dissuade one tree from dominating and causing poor growth in the other.

Thinning – Thinning a dense tree canopy can benefit you and the tree. It can bring more natural light to a dark part of your yard. It can also improve the tree’s natural resilience to heavy winds by allowing winds to pass through the canopy more easily and by allowing light to the canopy interior, encouraging interior wind-damping branches to grow.

Structural Pruning – Young trees require structural pruning to encourage strong form early on leading to fewer branch failures when mature. Growing and mature trees may require intervention after damage to help maintain balance and remove or reduce new loads from areas not adapted to the load.

Large Limb Removal

Some limbs that need to be removed are large enough to require consideration similar to a full tree removal. Additional equipment and skill may be required to maintain appropriate control of the cut pieces to ensure no damage to property during the process.

Tree Conservation

Cabling and Bracing – When a young tree exhibits a significant flaw, you may be better off removing the tree and starting over with better stock. But a mature tree has too much value to the homeowners and nature that enjoy its benefits. If a mature tree exhibits poor form that is cause for concern, cabling and/or bracing is a proactive approach to supplement the tree’s natural structure. Also, if a tree is showing signs of an imminent partial failure, cabling and/or bracing can significantly delay the need to remove the faulty portion. In some cases, it can even help the tree to recover from the damage and restore structural integrity. Cabling and bracing will require regular inspection and occasional adjustment or replacement as the tree continues to grow larger. These requirements vary depending on the application and the materials used. 

Restoration Pruning – When a tree is damaged during a storm or some other event, restoration pruning is designed to reduce the negative impact of injuries to the tree. Broken limbs and stems are removed and broken stubs are cut clean. The structure and balance of the tree are assessed and measures are taken to restore balance and maximize the health potential of the remaining tree.

Retrenchment Pruning – Mature trees in their golden years enter a phase called retrenchment. This is when their resources are no longer enough to maintain vitality and fend off pests and recover from injury. And they may have significant decay from old issues that weaken their structure. So they make themselves smaller. They shed their outermost canopy so their required resources better match available resources. And it makes them less vulnerable to wind damage. As you can imagine, this messy process can be quite inconvenient to us humans in an urban setting. Retrenchment pruning is intended to follow the natural process as closely as possible but in a proactive manner. It is not a single-visit pruning. The natural process is gradual and so should our human intervention version. Otherwise, the tree is likely to respond poorly and create even worse conditions that require more maintenance.

Hedge Trimming

Hedge trimming can involve any of the pruning methods noted above under Tree Pruning. But more likely you are interested in establishing or maintaining your hedge in a particular shape. If you want to start a shaped hedge, it is best to start once the hedge is close to the desired finished size. Overgrown hedges can require several annual trimmings to get them back down to the desired size, depending on species. Established hedges look their best when trimmed annually. Also, annual trimmings take less time and will, therefore, cost you less.

New Trees

Planting a new tree at your home can be an exciting and rewarding process. Perhaps you have lost a tree in a storm or had one removed that was dying or overgrew its space. Or maybe you are just adding a tree for one or many of their wonderful benefits! In any case, we can help with any part or all of the full process. We can provide advice. We can also do the physical work. However much help you want or need, we are available.

Planting Site Selection – In arboriculture, we have a saying, “Right tree, right place.”. This represents the principle of matching the planting site characteristics with the tree species characteristics for optimal, long-term success. If you have a particular tree species in mind that you want to plant at your home, we can help you find the best place to plant it for long-term success – if one such location exists on your property. It may turn out that the tree species you’ve selected just doesn’t work at your home. But that’s okay! If that’s the case, we can help you find an appropriate species with similar characteristics that will work.

Species Selection – If you have a spot in mind at your home where you want to plant a tree, we can help you select a tree species that is well suited to the desired planting site. If the desired planting site just isn’t suitable to support tree growth, we can recommend modifications to the site, if that opportunity is present. Or we can help you choose a different planting site. 

Nursery Stock Selection – Not all nursery stock is created equal! Firstly, there are various strategies used to propagate young trees for sale. These differences affect the purchase price, the size of the trees at their saleable state, their genetic diversity, and other factors. Each strategy has its pros and cons. We can help you choose the one that best suits what you need from your new tree. Secondly, trees are living organisms that adapt to their growing conditions. Growing conditions are dynamic and each tree has the ability to adapt in its own way. This means they will not all grow into optimal form. And, although nurseries have their own quality control processes, the stock approved for sale will still have specimens that are better than others. We can select the specimens that exhibit the best form and health to maximize the chance of long-term success and reduce the amount of initial required corrective pruning.

Planting – So you have the ‘right tree’, the ‘right place’, and good stock. Now it’s time to plant your new tree. This is not as simple as digging a hole, putting it in the hole, backfilling the hole, and watering the tree. To be honest, trees are very resilient, and if you followed this basic approach the tree still has a decent chance of surviving. However, wouldn’t you prefer the tree to thrive? We can plant your tree for you, digging an appropriate sized and shaped hole, inspecting and prepping the roots, performing an initial prune, backfilling properly, adding soil amendments, staking for initial support, mulching, and watering. We will also revisit the tree at appropriate intervals for the first year to monitor its progress.

Tree Removal

Trees provide benefits to their immediate environment at all stages of life, death, and decay. However, sometimes a tree needs to be removed. Especially in an urban setting. Making this task difficult is the general size of trees relative to the open space around them. We will use whatever methods are necessary to remove the tree in a safe manner that also minimizes any potential property damage. We can also assist with or take care of the tree removal permit process, where required.

Lab Analysis

There are times when it is helpful to know the nutrient and mineral profile of your soil as well as what nutrients and minerals are being taken up by your tree(s). Lab analysis can be performed quickly to provide a printout of useful data that can be used to inform appropriate treatment.

Is this a good spot to plant my new tree? – Test the soil of a potential planting site to determine if your preferred tree species will thrive or if the nutrient and mineral profile of the soil is better suited to another species.

Should I Fertilize? – If your tree is exhibiting signs of nutrient deficiency, it does not mean the nutrient is not present in the soil. There could be a different issue interfering with uptake such as a low or high pH. Adding fertilizer without knowing if it is truly needed can cause additional problems such as fertilizer burn. A soil analysis will provide a picture of the nutrients and minerals present in the soil. A foliar analysis will show which of these nutrients and minerals are being taken up by the tree. Additional details in the lab analysis can reveal the root cause and what steps can be taken to improve the soil-tree relationship.

Why does that Norway Maple look like its dying while the other four look perfectly healthy? They all looked good last summer! – Sound familiar? Comparative foliar analysis can be utilized to help determine the cause when only part of a group of related trees show signs of sudden stress or decline.

Free Consultations and Estimates

Call for a free on-site consultation. We will listen to your concerns. We will assess the tree. Then we will suggest a course of action that balances your concerns and the tree’s health. A written estimate will follow to ensure our understanding aligns with your expectations. At Groves Tree Service, we love trees! And we love to learn about and teach about trees. So please talk about your trees as much as you like or ask all the questions you have. If we don’t have the answer, we will research it and get back to you.