While yard care is often thought of as something done in the spring, winter can be a great time to trim and prune your trees. Winter tree care provides benefits to your trees and yard that cannot be accomplished as easily during warmer months.
Below are some tree care ideas for areas surrounding Seattle, Washington, during the colder months in the Pacific Northwest. These tips will help keep your trees healthier and your property safer all winter long. We’ll also explain some of the benefits of winter tree pruning and why hiring professional tree care experts is your best option for trimming trees in winter.
How to Prepare Your Trees for Winter
Winter tree care remains basic as long as you prepare your trees for the cold weather ahead of time. Follow these winter tree care tips to prepare your trees for the cold weather in King or Pierce County, Washington.
Winter Tree Care Tips from Our Experts
Remove any dead or dying branches from your trees. We highly recommend working with professional arborists, like the team at Pacific Arboriculture, when trimming trees in winter. They can identify and properly remove dead or damaged bark and limbs.
Next, prime the soil around your trees to support them through the winter. Remove any debris on the ground near the tree. Aerate the soil near the base of the tree and add fertilizer.
Add mulch around your tree until it’s about three inches thick. Leave about six inches of space between your mulch and the tree trunk to prevent fungus growth on the bark.
Finally, wrap your trees if needed. Again, this is a great time to get professional tree care. An arborist can help you identify which trees need the protection of winter wrapping.
Continue to water your trees in the winter if you don’t get rain or snowmelt.
Trimming Trees in Winter
Winter tree pruning gives you the advantage of clearly seeing the tree’s trunk and limbs while printing. Here are a few winter tree pruning tips to keep your trees healthy all year round.
First, get help from an arborist. They can inspect your yard and develop a plan that lays out the best places and times to prune the trees specific to your yard.
While winter is a great time to trim most trees, especially deciduous trees, avoid trimming pine trees in the winter. Instead, trim pine trees in the summer.
In winter, when most trees are exposed, arboriculture experts can easily see the warning signs of trees that have damage or infestation. They won’t need to wrestle with leaves to determine which sections to cut out or where to cut them.
Trimming your trees in the winter allows the cuts from the pruning to heal before the tree begins spending resources on new spring growth or fruiting.
Winter Tree Care Tips for areas near Seattle, Washington
In King or Pierce County, the rainy season can extend late into the fall and often until December. Take advantage of that late-season rain by planting trees in the fall.
Winter is also a great time to thin out all your trees, vines, and shrubs that get thick with overgrowth. With no leaves, you can easily see which branches should stay and which you should remove.
Many city regulations require you to keep your trees clear of public sidewalks and roads. Sidewalks need eight feet of overhead clearance, and roads need 14 feet. Also, trim any branches growing near utility lines for safety’s sake.
Curious about which tree regulations will apply to your city? Our arborists serve many Washington cities, including Burien, Federal Way, Maple Valley, Kent, Auburn, Renton, and more! Discover more about the tree services available and regulations for your city today.
The Benefits of Winter Tree Pruning
Pruning trees during the winter can bring tremendous benefits to many trees. Let’s highlight three of the most significant benefits of winter tree pruning:
Simplified Trimming
Pruning trees during the winter makes trimming much easier because dead, dying, or diseased limbs can’t hide behind leaves.
Reduced Risk of Infection
Fungi and insects are also in their dormant stage during winter. Winter tree pruning lowers the chance that a fungus or insect will infest your trees.
Healthier Regrowth
Trimming your trees during the winter gives the tree more time to recover before it begins to regrow the pruned limbs. That extra time usually results in the new branches growing cleaner, healthier, and stronger than if they had been trimmed during the growing season.
Maintaining Different Trees in Winter
Not all trees are the same. Some trees react better to winter trimming than others.
Pruning Fruit Trees in Winter
Most deciduous trees will benefit from winter pruning. Prune fruit trees in winter. Also, prune shade trees, like oaks.
Pruning Pine Trees in Winter
Avoid trimming pine trees during the winter. However, this advice is specific to pines. Other evergreens, like spruces and firs, can be pruned during winter.
Contact a certified arborist for winter pruning advice specific to the trees in your yard.
Trust Your Winter Tree Services to Pacific Arboriculture
For your winter tree care needs and tree pruning services, trust our experts in residential tree services! Our certified arborists know how to care for foliage near the Seattle area year-round. That can help you prepare your trees for winter and nurture them into the spring growing season. Contact Pacific Arboriculture and get a quote today!