Tree care is important for the aesthetic of your property. Deadwood is unsightly, but your primary motivation for regular tree care should be safety. Here is why regular tree pruning and deadwood removal is so critical for the safety of your property.
What to Know About Deadwood
Understanding Deadwood
Deadwood refers to any part of a tree that is no longer growing. While deadwood on a tree isn’t a good sign of its overall health, deadwood isn’t necessarily a death sentence for a tree. Trees can live for a long time despite parts of them being dead, and that’s part of the reason people think it’s not a big deal. A living tree can be made up of single limbs or sections of deadwood, or it may be composed of many deadwood limbs. The primary causes of deadwood include competition with other trees for sunlight, disease, and pests like insects. No matter how deadwood forms, it’s dangerous for the tree for a variety of reasons, and it also poses a risk to you and your property. In forests, fallen deadwood and the remains of standing dead trees play a critical role in their ecosystems. Deadwood helps nourish the soil, hosting animal, plant, and fungal life. In a home’s landscaping, however, deadwood is often considered an eyesore. Especially noticeable during the spring and summer months when leaves are abundant, these bald spots on a tree stick out like a sore thumb.
There are many reasons to want to remove deadwood from your property. While deadwood is sometimes benign in older trees as they lose some of their structure with age, it’s not beneficial. Deadwood attracts pests and infection due to its weakened structure, allowing them to enter an otherwise healthy tree and spread to living wood.
Spotting Deadwood
Deadwood is fortunately very easy to spot if you know what you’re looking for. Things are much more obvious in the warm months when deadwood won’t have leaves growing on it. These bare spots stick out and are often a cause for concern for homeowners (even if only from an aesthetic standpoint). In the winter, deadwood will appear drier than other wood, and it may be darker in color. If deadwood has been around for a while, you may notice pest damage and holes from woodpeckers, insects, and even fungal growth.
Spotting deadwood is much more challenging in tall trees or trees with many limbs, so it’s important to remember that you can’t simply rely on the untrained eye. Arborists are trained in spotting tree issues that nobody else would notice, and they can perform a tree inventory to ensure that your property’s trees are all healthy. Arborist consulting services will be able to assist you in determining which of your trees may have issues and how to best address the deadwood. In many cases, pruning and limb removal is the best course of action. In more extreme cases where much of a tree is dead, full deadwood tree removal may be necessary.
The Benefits of Deadwood Removal
Deadwood can benefit the soil in forests and can create sustainable ecosystems for small plants and animals. So why remove deadwood from trees? In nature, deadwood makes plenty of sense. In your backyard, it isn’t necessary and can cause issues. Fallen deadwood can damage other plants and property or even cause injuries to pedestrians or pets. Deadwood is highly unpredictable, meaning it can fall in severe winds or on a still day just as easily. Spotting deadwood and removing it early can prevent damage and ensure your tree’s health doesn’t continue to deteriorate. Deadwood is also unsightly. Trees with deadwood have bald patches in the spring and summer and look noticeably worse than other limbs, even without leaves in the fall and winter months.
How Deadwood Is Removed
Nashville tree removal services from The Parke Company can help you with your deadwood issues. Our staff of qualified, professional tree surgeons can help to determine which of your trees may need pruning and deadwood removal. Once the trees are assessed, the next step is to plan the removal. For smaller limbs and trees, ladders and pole saws may be all that’s necessary to conduct the pruning. On bigger trees, or in the event that total removal is necessary, more equipment and work may be required. Tree removal and pruning in Nashville can be conducted year-round depending on the severity of the issues, but it’s recommended to wait to prune less problematic limbs until the winter months. If you can afford to wait for minor deadwood removal, it’s usually less expensive to have it scheduled in advance. For pressing issues like extensive deadwood or complete tree removal, time is of the essence to ensure that the deadwood doesn’t damage your property or home.
The Dangers of DIY Deadwood Removal
It’s a dangerous prospect to remove deadwood on your own without the proper equipment and know-how. Deadwood can fall while you’re cutting it, and its brittle nature doesn’t mean it can’t harm you when it falls. Climbing a tree to remove deadwood or to remove the tree from the top down is incredibly dangerous and should only be done by experienced and insured professional tree surgeons.
The way that you prune a tree can also cause more harm than good to the tree itself. Proper pruning requires knowledge and specialized tools to prevent causing trauma to the tree. This is especially true in the spring and summer when the tree is not dormant. It’s advised that pruning occurs in the winter to allow the tree to devote its energy and resources to healing rather than splitting the duty between recovery and growing and maintaining its leaves. Removing deadwood from your trees regularly is a great way to keep your yard looking great and save money in the long run. Maintaining your trees with the help of The Parke Company can give you the peace of mind that your trees are free of deadwood and will remain sturdy during storm season.
Do Away With Deadwood — The Right Way
If you’re ready to have your trees assessed for deadwood or need deadwood removed, The Parke Company can help. Be proactive with tree and landscape maintenance and work with us today.