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Top Tree Services Arborists Handle in Late Winter

May 26, 2025February 28, 2025 by The Parke Company

Arborists are busy all year round, and it may surprise you that things really don’t slow down in the winter. Here are some of the most common tree services arborists tackle in the winter.

1. Pruning

When should you schedule tree services like pruning? While issues are most noticeable to us when the leaves are on the trees (and missing from the limbs that need pruning), late winter is the best time to trim deciduous trees. For a quick tree terminology reminder, deciduous trees are any that lose their leaves each winter. The reason that winter is the best time for pruning comes down to a tree’s life cycle. In the winter, trees enter a dormant phase where they commit most of their energy to storing nutrients. In the spring and summer, those resources are directed to growing leaves and expanding the root systems. Pruning is necessary for the health of a tree, but it does cause trauma. Pruning involves removing dead wood and limbs from a tree, but the cuts are made into healthy wood. Since the winter is a slow time of development for your tree, it can commit its energy to healing the pruning cut.

Since winter is generally drier and, obviously, colder than spring or summer, the environment for a cut to heal is also safer for the tree. Without high levels of moisture and warmer temperatures, the trees in winter are less likely to fall prey to fungal infections or insect pests. Another reason to opt for pruning in the winter is to keep your lawn and landscaping safe. While arborists endeavor to keep limbs from falling when they prune, colder, hardened ground means your lawn won’t be damaged if a limb does fall. Likewise, heavy equipment like bucket trucks and wood chippers won’t be at risk of digging ruts in your lawn if the ground is firm and dry.

As for evergreens, the pruning should take place in the early spring. But it’s a good idea to make sure you’re thinking of that this winter if most of your trees are evergreen since appointments fill up. So when you ask, “What do arborists do in the winter?” a lot of the time, the answer is pruning, but that’s not all we do to keep busy during the coldest season.

2. Tree Inspections and Inventories

Another important component of every arborist’s job is tree inspecting and inventorying. While not everybody needs an inventory of their trees, many homeowners and commercial property owners rely on this critical service for enhancing the look of their landscaping. If you have a landscape with a lot of trees, you may be looking for ways to enhance how it looks this spring. Arborists wear many hats, and inventorying gives them the opportunity to flex a lot of their professional muscles. Inventorying includes the identification of unique tree species on your property, mapping their layout, planning removals and new plantings, and developing overall aesthetic improvements to enhance your property’s look.

Do trees grow in the winter? Do you really need to worry about them when it’s cold? Trees don’t grow in winter, or at least not usually. Some root development can occur if the ground is warm enough, but that’s really it, even here in Nashville. So, while the trees are resting, arborists are inspecting your trees for damage and figuring out how your property’s canopy can be enhanced. From planning a more biodiverse landscape to attract pollinators to planting native trees in place of invasive species, arborists perform inventories and inspections to improve the overall look and health of your landscape.

3. Emergency Services

Winter storms are no joke, even here in the south, where winters are mild. In fact, sometimes that mild weather keeps things just warm enough for freezing rain, one of the most destructive forces of nature for a tree besides heavy winds. A thick layer of ice on your trees can increase the weight of their limbs by 30 times, meaning a tree’s structure is placed under immense pressure in a matter of hours. When that happens, limbs and trees themselves are much more likely to fall, potentially causing damage and making a huge mess of your property. Arborist tree services in the wake of winter storms are critical not just for home and business owners but also for utility companies and municipalities that need quick cleanup. Many arborists support electricity providers when they need to prune trees around power lines, and they also consult and can be contracted for help safely cleaning up after a storm. We can do the same for your home or business.

We are fully insured, making the work we do safe for your property. By having an arborist help clean up after a winter storm, you are also ensuring your safety. Removing damaged limbs or trees is a dangerous job, even without ice and snow in the way. Let the experts who have the experience and proper equipment handle your winter storm cleanup! Arborists and tree surgeons are uniquely qualified and can help ensure that the storm damage doesn’t lead to issues later in the year for you. Sometimes, storms can weaken or crack a tree in a way that isn’t obvious, but during a tree inventory or storm cleanup, an arborist may notice and alert the homeowner to prevent future damage. Winter emergencies are stressful for anyone, and trees need to be taken very seriously. The damage trees can sustain and cause due to ice, high winds, and snow is something we’d all like to avoid, but when you can’t, it’s best to contact the experts.

Keep Up With Your Trees in the Winter

If a late winter storm causes damage, or if you’d like to schedule a preemptive pruning and inspection, you should not leave the work for later. Give us a call at The Parke Company today for a consultation and estimate for whatever your tree needs are this winter.

Fertilization Schedules for Different Grass Types

October 28, 2025February 12, 2025 by The Parke Company

Your lawn is a unique ecosystem, potentially made up of different kinds of grass and other ground-covering plants that need specialized treatment. Here’s why different grass types require different fertilization schedules and how to ensure your lawn is properly cared for year-round.

Understanding Grass Types: Why Fertilization Schedules Matter

What Are Fertilizers?

Fertilizers may not be something you’re all that familiar with. In fact, many homeowners don’t realize that their lawns need to be fertilized at all. We most often associate the word with farming, but fertilization is critical to the healthy development of a lawn as much as it is a crop of wheat or vegetables.

Traditional fertilizers were made of animal waste, but modern technology has cleared the way for specific grass fertilizers that don’t smell or carry the potential for germs and bacteria. The three main chemical components of a good fertilizer are the elements nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Each of these aspects of a fertilizer targets different parts of a lawn, but they are all necessary for both cool- and warm-season grasses. Modern lawn fertilizers also do double duty, helping to curb pests or targeting specific kinds of unwanted lawn growth, like weeds and crabgrass. No matter your grass type, fertilization should be a part of your lawn care routine.

The Composition of Nashville Lawns

Nashville is in a bit of a unique setting, where our lawns can be made of either cool- or warm-season grasses. These types of grass have different needs, pros, and cons.

Cool-season grasses grow mostly in the spring and fall, when temperatures are cooler and the sun is less intense. Warm-season grasses are, of course, the opposite, growing best in the summer. They are adapted to more sunlight and drier soil. The most common types of grass found in Nashville include tall fescue, fine fescue, bermudagrass, Kentucky bluegrass, and centipedegrass. There are even more types of grass that do well in Nashville, but these are some of the most common options for homeowners and commercial businesses. Most lawns aren’t made of just grass. Other plants typically make up lawns, especially those that aren’t treated with herbicides to prevent them. Each lawn is different, which means it’s important to know the specific makeup of your grass before deciding on a lawn fertilization schedule. Read on for some tips on how and when to fertilize your grass, depending on the season and the composition of your lawn.

Warm-Season Grasses

Bermudagrass, zoysia, and centipedegrass are three of the more common warm-season grasses we see in existing lawns in Nashville. They’re also usually what is seeded or turfed on lawns for new homes or businesses, too. As the adage goes, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it! These warm-season grasses have worked for our climate for decades and produce lush and full-looking lawns when properly maintained and fertilized. Since warm-season grasses thrive in higher temperatures, they go dormant when things cool off, meaning you’re going to see the most growth in the summer. So, what should your grass fertilizer schedule look like for warm-season grasses? The best time to fertilize your warm-season lawn is in the mid to late spring to maximize the nutrient delivery to the grass root systems when it’s most needed. No matter the type of grass you have, it’s not a good idea to fertilize when temperatures are too high. This makes the early spring a great time to fertilize. Warm-season grasses can also be fertilized in the early summer, usually in June. Since temperature can determine when to fertilize, try to find a day or couple days in June when temperatures are below 85 degrees °F. If the temperatures are too high, watering after fertilizing can damage the lawn by raising soil temps too quickly.

Finally, fertilize in the early fall, like September. This helps your grass to store nutrients and prepare for its dormant months in the winter. While you fertilize in the spring, you may also consider lawn aeration. This process involves poking small holes in your turf before watering, seeding, and fertilizing to allow nutrients to penetrate deeper into the soil quickly. Aeration is best done in the early to mid-spring to ensure that temperatures aren’t too high, keeping the soil cooler than the air. The Parke Company offers aeration and fertilization maintenance schedules for all grass types and lawn sizes in the Nashville area since aeration and fertilizing call for precision and specialized equipment.

Cool-Season Grasses

So, what is the best schedule for lawn fertilization? For cool-season grasses like Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, and fine fescue, a slightly different plan of action is required for fertilization when compared to warm-season grass. As with warm-season grasses, the fertilization schedule for cool-season grasses has three suggested sessions of fertilizing. The first fertilization should happen in early spring, typically in mid-April (or earlier if temperatures are higher than average). Unlike warm-season grass, key fertilizing timing skips the rest of spring and summer. Instead, you’ll do round two of fertilizing in the early fall (September roughly) and go over again with fertilization in the late fall, around the end of October.

Help With Your Grass Fertilization Schedule

Managing a fertilization schedule for either type of grass requires some expertise, and it’s important to pay attention to the weather before, during, and after your fertilization. While it is possible to handle fertilization yourself, many opt to hire landscapers to do the job for the sake of simplicity. It takes a fairly big task off your plate, meaning you don’t need to go to the store and buy a bunch of fertilizer, keep specialized spreaders on hand all year, and check weather reports in the weeks and months around optimal fertilization time. The Parke Company is Nashville’s premier landscaping company, and we offer comprehensive lawn maintenance plans that give you back precious time in your day while ensuring your lawn is looking its best.

From fall cleanup to spring aeration and summer irrigation maintenance, we offer every service you need to keep your landscaping looking its best. Call us at The Parke Company today to learn more about how our landscaping services, including fertilization, can improve the quality of your Nashville lawn.

Who Handles Municipal Services for Nashville’s Trees, Leaves, and Debris?

October 30, 2025January 27, 2025 by The Parke Company

2025 is here, and with a new year comes a new round of brush and leaf pickup for Nashville residents to navigate. Let’s look a bit closer at the whos, whats, and whys of these municipal services that help us keep Nashville looking great.

What Are Municipal Services?

The word municipal itself means “of a city,” so a general definition of municipal services is anything that pertains to a city. In modern cities, this means everything from infrastructure to local government falls under the umbrella of municipal services. Municipal services are the basic necessities and more involved duties that come with properly running and maintaining the area of and around a city. These services are crucial for the city to operate and are paid for with tax money collected from Nashville residents. Transportation and sanitation are major municipal services that you’re undoubtedly familiar with. Police and fire departments are also critical public resources that are considered municipal services.

Who Oversees Municipal Services?

If you’re wondering specifically about who handles municipal services relating to leaf and brush pickup, there are specific departments that are established to handle each aspect of city life. Municipal services like brush pickup and the clearing of trees and leaves from public areas like parks and city properties are managed by Davidson County in Nashville. The city and surrounding suburbs of Nashville are referred to as Metro Nashville’s Urban and General Services Districts. Governmental positions and public works have been established to support the large infrastructure required to mobilize and implement regularly scheduled brush pickup. The Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure handles leaf and brush pickup for the city, among other crucial roadway services like road repair and snow removal. Also known as NDOT, the Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure is responsible for the safety and mobility of Nashville residents on the city’s roadways and transportation network.

When Do Brush Municipal Services Occur?

The NDOT works each day to ensure the safety of roads and walkways throughout Davidson County in Nashville, but brush pickup for residents is not an everyday thing. In Nashville, brush collection is managed by NDOT to ensure efficient and timely removal. Each section under the Metro’s jurisdiction is serviced four times per year on a rolling schedule. To see when your next brush cleanup is scheduled, you can consult the map linked here or check out the city’s website for a calendar. You’ll enter your address and see a customized schedule for your home’s leaf and brush pickups. Municipal landscape services like brush pickup are very important for residents and the city as a whole. That’s why it’s important to know when to expect pickups in your area, so you can keep your lawn (and, by extension, the whole area) looking and operating at its best. The biggest times for brush and leaf pickup are in the fall and spring when cleanup is most important. But since you can accumulate sticks and leaves, along with other yard debris like grass clippings and dead foliage, there are more pickups throughout the year to ensure things are picked up regularly.

Does Everyone Get Brush Pickup in Nashville?

The short answer is no. There are areas of Nashville and its surrounding suburbs that are considered satellite cities or self-incorporated areas that have their own municipal services. These areas include neighborhoods like Forest Hills, Berry Hill, and Belle Meade. For folks who live in these incorporated cities, your municipality may offer brush and leaf pickup, but it won’t be handled by NDOT. Chances are, these services are provided by commercial landscaping services for municipalities, meaning private companies that are contracted to perform brush pickup in these smaller areas. Landscaping businesses like The Parke Company, who have serviced Nashville for decades, may be hired to handle leaf and brush pickup on a regular basis for area residents who do not fall under NDOT’s jurisdiction.

Municipal Landscaping in Nashville

There are many things that don’t fall to public services, like certain beautification initiatives and other services focused on improving a city’s aesthetics and natural elements. One service that landscaping companies often provide for cities is tree inventorying. This process, performed by a qualified arborist, involves the meticulous mapping and identification of a city’s trees. The canopy of a city can vary greatly from place to place, and its health and makeup can improve the lives of residents if properly maintained. Consider hot summers and how important shade can be on a sunny day. Trees help provide pedestrians with cooler, safer walking and biking temperatures, ensuring that people get to work on time or just enjoy an afternoon stroll. When a city needs to remove old trees or plant new ones, they may contract with private landscaping companies to fill the gaps they may have.

Since many municipal services are focused on upkeep and maintenance, as well as brush cleanup services, they may not have the resources to handle large projects without some outside help. Most municipalities have the costs incorporated in their budgets to hire landscapers to help with public grass maintenance, landscaping installations at public buildings like city halls and courthouses, as well as storm cleanup. Nashville is no stranger to severe weather, and when wind and rain wreak havoc, a quick and concerted cleanup effort is in order. While the city has the resources like trucks, equipment, and manpower to handle general maintenance, they sometimes need to work with landscaping companies to get things done quickly.

Whether it’s a major city or a self-incorporated area like we mentioned before, there are many scenarios where landscaping companies can assist. The Parke Company has been helping towns in the Nashville area for decades on projects both big and small. We’re a company committed to safe, affordable, and friendly landscaping services, from lawn maintenance like leaf pickup to tree removal and stump grinding.

Trust Landscaping to the Pros

If you need landscaping in and around Nashville, look no further than The Parke Company. Give us a call today to learn more about how we support municipalities and how you can benefit from our landscape maintenance services.

Nashville Brush Pickup: Your 2025 Guide

March 21, 2025January 11, 2025 by The Parke Company

Brush pickup is one of those municipal services whose importance is easy to overlook, but it’s a very worthwhile perk of living in Nashville that you should be taking full advantage of. Here’s what to do for brush pickup as a general rule of thumb, in case you need a refresher in this new year.

The Importance of Brush Pickup

Keeping your property free of brush and dead leaves is a great way to boost the curb appeal of your home. Most homeowners also simply like keeping a tidy yard, and that’s reason enough to be grateful for brush pickup services. But cleaning up your yard has a lot more benefits beyond the aesthetic. Our yards are living ecosystems, and dead brush can attract the wrong attention. Fallen tree limbs, dead leaves, sticks, and deadwood can all be an inviting home for pests and fungus to take up residence. Insects like white grubs, armyworms, sod webworms, and chinch bugs are all common Nashville lawn pests. On their own, these bugs can eat grass and leaves, dig beneath the lawn and destroy grass roots, and attract attention from other pests. Animal pests like mice, moles, and chipmunks will flock to the flourishing insect life that’s found in your yard. These animals dig, tunnel, and burrow their way through your grass and under live trees, causing damage to important root structures. With yard debris to hide the activities and growth of these pests and diseases, it might be hard to notice the lawn slowly dying. Grass is not an easy thing to regrow without some extensive and costly work, so it’s best not to ignore it.

Nashville brush pickup can keep your lawn looking its best and ensure its overall health, too. Brush pickup also has environmental benefits. In the past, people tended to burn fallen limbs, branches, and leaves on their own. This smoke could cause sinus irritation and trigger asthma throughout the neighborhood. Ecologically speaking, the amount of carbon and methane emissions that burning brush en masse gave off in previous decades was extensive. Instead, the brush is now recycled into mulch or compost, giving it a second life. This method of using yard waste is preferable to burning it both in terms of personal effort and avoiding large, potentially dangerous fires. Many towns around Nashville have laws regarding what you can and cannot burn, and many seasons are subject to burn bans entirely, meaning you may need to hold onto your brush for months before dealing with it that way. Brush pickup is a great resource to help keep your yard clean year-round.

Brush Pickup Tips

Brush pickup in Nashville is fairly effortless, but you still do need to make sure you’re handling it properly for easy and efficient disposal. It’s important to note that leaf pickup and brush pickup are two different things, but the two happen at the same time. Leaves are to be placed at the curb for pickup in biodegradable paper bags only. Grass clippings can also be bagged independently or within bags of leaves. Ensure that no other waste or trash is in these bags, as it can damage equipment used to mulch the leaves.

While the rules around leaf pickup are pretty straightforward, there can be some confusion around what types of brush and yard debris are picked up. There are best practices for how to place brush at the curb, and there are also guidelines for the size limits of certain items. One important aspect of where to place brush is its proximity to the street. You want to place brush close to the road but not on it. Do not obstruct traffic with limbs or bagged leaves. If you have a pile of wood near the street, ensure that it is stable and not at risk of falling into the road, as this potential road hazard could be your responsibility. You need to also avoid placing brush too far into your yard, as the trucks cannot reach too far from the street. A helpful guideline is to give yourself about six inches of lawn between your brush and the roadway. Similarly, do not let limbs or bagged leaves obstruct the sidewalk or bike lanes. When placing branches and limbs, organize them in an orderly stack so that they can be easily picked up. It might be tempting to place your brush in a median to avoid an unsightly lawn, but this is not allowed. Wood and other lawn debris here will not be picked up and could cause damage to municipal drain systems. Don’t lean or stack wood piles against mailboxes, fences, trees, guardrails, or utility poles, as the machinery used to lift the brush can damage these objects.

Brush pickup rules do place a limit on the length and diameter of limbs that crews will pick up. Limbs cannot exceed a length of 12 feet and need to be limited to a width of four inches. Using a small chainsaw or axe can help you cut up larger limbs into more manageable pieces. Nashville will also pick up tree stumps but requires you to ensure that they are free of dirt and root balls when placed at the curb. As for size, stumps can be up to eight inches in diameter and 12-18 feet in root width. Knowing the Nashville brush pickup schedule is helpful when planning your yardwork or tree work. The city’s website includes multiple maps and calendars that can show you when crews will be in your area performing brush cleanup.

Keep Up With Brush Pickup

If you’re not interested in dealing with brush pickup and clearing your lawn of debris, don’t stress. At The Parke Company, we’ve been performing landscaping services for decades and are ready to assist you in projects both big and small. Whether it’s seasonal maintenance or full tree service, we can help. And don’t worry about leaving tons of wood in your yard for brush pickup. With our full landscaping services, we’ll haul away and mulch anything we can so that your lawn looks excellent all year round.

Brush pickup is a great service, but it can be a bit tricky to nail down all of the rules and best practices, so we hope this helps. If you’re looking for some help with your landscaping in Nashville, from brush and tree removal to everything in between, call us at The Parke Company today.

Are You Aware of These Winter Tree Care Tips?

February 20, 2025December 20, 2024 by The Parke Company

Winter is a time for your trees to enter a dormant state, slowing their growth and storing nutrients as they wait out the cold weather. There’s a lot that you can do to help them and ensure that they survive the winter, leading to better health in the spring and summer.

How to Help Your Trees Thrive During Winter Dormancy

1. Prune in Winter

Winter tree care is very important to the overall lifespan of your tree, and proper pruning can mean the difference between a healthy tree and an ailing one come spring. Late fall and early winter are prime seasons for pruning deciduous trees and bushes because of their dormancy. Since trees aren’t committing their water and nutrition to growing leaves or new branches, they can heal from wounds more quickly. Pruning is proactive and the right thing to do to prevent disease when you see a dying limb or branch, but there are right ways and wrong ways to prune a tree. Improper cuts can actually prevent the tree from properly healing. It’s easy to cut too much or too little from a dead limb, leaving the tree worse off than if you did nothing. Pruning right before a frost can leave the inside of the tree exposed to lower temperatures, meaning that the timing needs to be just right.

Additionally, specialized tools are necessary for removing branches and limbs for the safety of your property (and you!). Pruning is best left to professional arborists for these reasons, and if you’re looking for Nashville tree care, you can count on The Parke Company. We’ve serviced central Tennessee for decades, and our expertise means your trees will be in good hands.

2. Mulch to Protect

Mulching in the fall is a great way to ensure that your plants are protected from freezing temperatures at the root level. A few inches of mulch around the perimeter of a tree trunk or in a garden bed can keep ground temperatures above freezing, which can save the tree from permanent damage. While many trees native to Tennessee are hardy, not all of them can survive in frozen ground for prolonged periods. While we aren’t always getting the coldest winters down here, it’s always possible, and cold weather is certainly in everyone’s memory. Last January saw a three-day dip into freezing temps that had many of us caught off guard by high snowfall and blustery winds. Without mulch during a cold snap like this, the roots of many trees are at risk of damage. While these arctic cold snaps aren’t super common in the South, they can still happen and cause lasting harm to trees. One of the best winter tree care tips is to use the wood from your yearly pruning to produce mulch that you can then use to protect the roots of younger or smaller trees and bushes. This is a service that we offer at The Parke Company, and it’s actually beneficial for us all. We don’t need to haul away your wood, and you get natural mulch to regulate the temperature of your soil.

3. Wrap Trees and Shrubs

Plastic tree guards are a great way to help keep saplings and small trees and bushes safe in the winter. Wraps on tree trunks are great for preventing pest damage from foraging wildlife looking for food when resources are scarce. Since deer, squirrels, mice, and other small mammals can get some nutrition from your trees’ bark, your yard can quickly become a buffet if things get desperate. The damage from grazing animals can be fairly extensive and can kill the tree outright. Even if the nibbles aren’t too much, the wounds they cause can let pests gain access to the tree more easily, causing you more issues in the spring from termites and other insects.

Another benefit of wrapping the trunks of smaller or newer trees is to prevent what’s called sunscald. Sunscald is a type of sun damage that saplings are especially susceptible to. Sunscald can also impact trees with thin bark, like maples and cherries. Essentially, sunscald is the result of a tree warming in the sunlight enough to stimulate growth, then losing the light due to more clouds and less daylight. When this active bark is exposed to the cold, it’s not prepared and can die, leading to the appearance of sunken, dried, and cracked bark and dead spots on the tree. A great tree care method to prevent this is by wrapping the trees’ trunks in white protective plastic. This helps to reflect the light and keep the bark from becoming too warm.

4. Keep Watering

How do you keep trees from dying in the winter? One of the best ways to make sure your trees survive the cold is to ensure they’re properly hydrated. Even in Nashville, where many of our winters are wet, trees can still go through dry spells that can harm them. Since all of a tree’s resources are committed to survival, they still need a good amount of water, and steadily, all winter long. There are a few methods for properly watering during the winter, but the cold weather does make some traditional watering methods difficult. Irrigation systems should be shut down, even with the mild winters we usually experience. This is because even one night of freezing temperatures can cause damage to the pipes when the water in them freezes, leading to costly repairs in the spring. Instead, rely on watering with a soaker hose or using other popular gardening tools, like a tree watering ring. Soaker hose systems are essentially above-ground irrigation systems that constantly move small amounts of water to multiple areas of your garden or landscaping.

Trees don’t need as much water in the winter, so giving them a few hours of slow watering a week should suffice. If a freeze is coming, bring your hose in, or make sure it’s fully drained of water to prevent damage to the nozzles and couplings. If you’re unsure of what a tree watering ring is, don’t worry. These are products that circle the trunk of a tree and are full of absorbent materials that soak up water and slowly dispense it right to the roots of the tree. In addition to providing your trees with a steady water supply, they can also insulate the ground near a tree, protecting the roots from frost.

Don’t Fear the Winter

This winter, ensure your trees are properly cared for and ready for the cold that most certainly will come for at least a short while. If you need help tackling your winter prep lawn care, give the experts at The Parke Company a call today.