Ornamental trees and shrubs play essential roles in modern landscapes by adding visual interest, providing shade, and even creating a refuge for beneficial birds and insects. Those beloved trees need some care to keep looking their best, though, including pruning. Read on to find out about the key benefits of pruning trees and shrubs to find out why it’s always worth scheduling this type of basic maintenance.
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Proper Pruning Fights Pests and Infections
Regular pruning helps to maintain the health of trees, especially when it comes to removing dead, dying, or infected branches. If one branch becomes damaged and allows pests, bacteria, or fungi to make their way beneath the bark, the problem can quickly spread to the rest of the tree and even to nearby specimens. Calling professional tree maintenance services as soon as any signs of damage or infection appear is the best way to prevent the spread of pests and diseases.
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Maintain Overall Health
Pruning dead, dying, and damaged branches allows trees to route key nutrients to the remaining, healthy branches more efficiently. Thinning dense branches can also help to maintain tree health by increasing the amount of light that gets in and improving airflow among the leaves. It’s best to perform structural pruning when a tree is young, but maintenance pruning is appropriate at any time in a tree’s life.
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Keep Trees Looking Beautiful
Pruning isn’t just about maintaining trees’ health. It’s also about keeping each specimen looking its best, which extends beyond just removing dead branches. Structural pruning can fix uneven growth patterns that could otherwise leave a tree looking lopsided and awkward and create problems with light and airflow.
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Stay Safe
Most people don’t think of ornamental trees as being potentially dangerous, but they can be if dead, dying, or weakened branches aren’t removed. Each time there’s a storm, further damage will occur, and the chances will increase that those branches, or even the entire tree, will come down unexpectedly on a home, outbuilding, car, or even a person. Pruning the tree to ensure that all of its branches are healthy is the best way to keep everyone and everything on the property safe.
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Counter Root Loss
Root loss can occur for many reasons, including everything from construction in the area to soil compaction and routine lawn maintenance. Regardless of why the root loss has occurred, it will impact the tree’s ability to absorb nutrients and water. The best way to save a tree with moderate root loss is to prune back the canopy so the root system doesn’t need to provide as much water.
Always Hire a Tree Care Professional
Unless property owners have proper training and experience with tree pruning, it’s always best to hire a professional arborist. These tree care experts know when, where, and how to perform all of the different types of pruning techniques to improve a tree’s health and appearance while reducing the chances of infections entering through open wounds. Tree care professionals can also identify pest infestations to prevent their spread and remove trees that are no longer wanted safely.
