Best Time to Trim Trees in Chicago

Seasonal Tree Trimming Guide

Most people in Chicagoland believe that pruning during the fall is ideal. We’ll see if that’s true, mainly because there are four seasons. Pruning can help for various reasons, but the most important is keeping safe and managing tree size.

If you’re not sure when to prune your trees or if you’ll be doing it this fall, keep reading as we discuss the optimum time of year to prune trees in the Chicago area.

Spring Pruning

Just like spring cleaning, you can benefit from spring tree trimming. However, before you start trimming your trees, you’ll need to remember a few things. Trees that create sap are pruned in the winter many times, and it is perfectly acceptable. The only issue is that they make too much sap. Ultimately, the sap is more of an annoyance than harm.

Arborists and homeowners can also prune fruit trees early in summer. The aim here is to reduce the overproduction of fruits and ensure each fruit produced receives enough sunlight.

Spring-blooming shrubs, such as Forsythia, Rhododendrons, Lilacs, and Viburnum, are often budded on wood from the previous year. Its buds were well established during the last summer and should be handled with care not to prune them too soon or remove all of the excellent buds. It would be best to trim shrubs later in the spring after the flowers have died. Spring pruning helps since this is just before new flowers start to grow.

Winter Pruning

Even as the cold temperatures in Chicagoland drop well below zero degrees, most residents continue to make preparations for the spring season. Make sure you have the best tools available to trim your trees and that they’re correctly disinfected, clean, and sharpened. In winter, you’ll want to prune all of your tree branches because the trees are dormant, which is much more ideal for bigger pruning jobs.

Shrubs that bloom in the summer (Rose of Sharon and potentilla) generally bloom in the spring. The shrubs should be encouraged to grow and pruned at this time. Your fruit trees should produce an entire crop when summer arrives if you do it correctly. Even though most fruit trees don’t require annual trimming, it’s good practice to bring out the most potential fruit yield.

Nothing is as frightening as a dead branch becoming a hazard or a long branch getting trapped in electricity lines. The secret to pruning is to keep up with the tree’s natural cycle – don’t try to hurry things up between seasons. Trimming your trees at the right time may help encourage healthy plants, fairness, and general appeal.

Fall Pruning

The timing of when to fall prune a tree is essential. Tree trimming is most effective during the dormant season. This period begins when the leaves have dropped from the tree. The upper trunk and branches are visible around late fall and end when temperatures stay over 40 degrees for many hours. Trimming trees in the fall can damage them, especially during a scorching season. If the temperatures are not low enough, new growth, such as tree shoots, may develop and put the tree under stress.

The best time to prune trees is when they are not active during the winter. Do it before the first snowfall if you need to remove dead branches. The weight of the snow might cause the branches to fall.

Summer Pruning

When possible, You should avoid summer pruning. It’s better to trim trees when they’re dormant, for around 90 percent of the species, in the fall or early winter. In summer, the open wounds attract disease and insects that can harm the tree.

Summer is not the best time to prune fruit and nut trees. It would help if you only trimmed almond trees, nectarine, plum, apricot, and peach trees during the summer months. Because late fall through early spring is when the silver leaf disease affects these plants, you can prune with confidence in the summer for little pruning jobs.

Suppose you need help with any of these details. After all, it is a lot of information. In that case, it is always a good idea to contact a professional arborist to guide you through these pruning processes or get the job done for you safely.