How Can I Stormproof My Trees Before Bad Weather Hits?
Can You Prepare Your Trees for Severe Storms?
Storm damage can hit in different ways, so preparing and having your trees serviced by arborists who truly care can make a significant difference. High winds are the most frequently cited reason for causing unexpected damage to trees. Extreme winds cause branches and limbs to fall and can even uproot a fully grown tree under the right circumstances. Severe weather doesn’t just impact Central Ohio in the Summer. With winter storms come snow and ice, which can be just as dangerous. As snow and ice accumulate along branches, they can bend and snap due to the weight. What may not seem like a lot of additional weight may add up very quickly, and with a little wind can cause falling limbs to hit cars, structures, or people. By implementing precautionary care, you can ensure your trees are stable and aren’t immediately susceptible to severe storm damage.
Have A Tree Safety Professional Inspect Your Trees
Joseph Tree has customers reach out to us for advice, not knowing if they need preventative tree care. Without training or experience, it’s difficult to determine whether your tree is ready to handle an intense storm. Our team of certified arborists is trained to notice small and nuanced signs of a tree’s health. When performing an inspection, we will closely examine the tree for signs of disease, decay, pests, dead branches, and other indicators that give us better insight into the tree’s overall state. Arborists can often look at a tree and determine if the roots have issues, if there’s an infestation, or if it requires pruning. Over several years, a tree can change significantly. The roots may weaken, causing decay and other problems above ground. Branch failure can be extremely dangerous, especially during heavy storms. If your trees haven’t been inspected in the last 3 to 5 years, reach out to Joseph Tree. We’ll send one of our team members out to provide a thorough inspection and offer you an estimate to provide proper care for the trees and prepare them for the next big storm.
Pruning Trees to Withstand Storms
Pruning is one of the best ways to prevent a storm from damaging a tree. With the intense ice storms, high winds, and severe weather Ohio gets, branch failure is an extreme safety risk for nearby properties, structures, and persons. When pruning a tree, Joseph Tree removes dead and weak branches, as well as anything that is broken off and stuck in the tree. This is one of the most effective ways to keep a tree stable and healthy during seasons with dangerous, heavy storms. Strategic pruning is another technique to encourage a more balanced growth pattern along the trunk and canopy. This technique focuses on shaping the tree by making very precise cuts at specific places and angles to reduce the chance of breakage. While we can provide safe pruning techniques at any time, customers get a lot more value when they start pruning while the tree is still young and impressionable. Pruning early on in the tree’s life will help the trunk grow much stronger so that it can withstand more extreme environmental factors like high-speed winds. Some trees end up splitting their trunk into two co-dominant trunks while they grow, which will almost always cause structural issues. By reducing the weight of one side of the tree, you can increase the stability of the entire body. Skilled arborists offer safe pruning techniques that both keep your trees healthy while improving the chances they will go unharmed during the next storm season.
The Impact of Tree Roots During Major Storms
Tree roots are one of the most critical pieces to keeping a tree strong during a storm, and greatly increase tree safety. Often overlooked, roots are one of the most helpful indicators of the health of a tree. Soil that rests around the trunk provides nutrients and a safe habitat for the tree’s roots to grow over many years. We offer soil testing and soil quality improvement services because increasing the soil quality around your trees will give them a strong opportunity to grow stronger, healthier roots. Healthy roots keep a tree secure to the ground, but also make limbs stronger. Root health and tree safety are intertwined, so work with a professional arborist to determine the health of your roots! Instead of finding out the tree’s roots are weak, diseased, or struggling in nutrient-void soil after a major storm, have one of the arborists at Joseph Tree implement prevention tree care! Proper tree care can prevent major catastrophes from happening during a storm. Invest in preparing your trees for storms and other unexpected problems, and feel safer knowing your trees are more stable than before.
Professional Post-Storm Tree Care
Even the most well-cared-for trees can still sustain damage during a severe storm. After a storm, safely check to see if any branches have broken, limbs fallen, the tree is leaning, or if you see bark loss. Once you’ve assessed the damage, contact a professional arborist to schedule an appointment. Joseph Tree will send out an arborist to survey the property, assessing the damage and checking to ensure there’s no additional immediate risks. After a major storm, it’s important to contact your arborists right away to assess the damage. Arborists may be busier dealing with many downed trees and the aftermath of tree failure, so don’t wait to schedule an inspection, or you may face unwanted delays. Once we’ve cleared debris and restored the tree to a more stable state, we can properly prune the tree and get it ready for the next big storm. Reach out to Joseph Tree to get a proper tree care specialist to provide their expert opinion.
What You Can Do About Leaning Trees
Leaning doesn’t explicitly mean that a tree on your property is going to fall. Depending on the tree’s surroundings, it may grow at an angle to avoid the shade cast from other surrounding trees or structures. If your tree has been leaning its entire life, there isn’t a major cause for concern. If the lean is a newer occurrence, the tree may need some professional care. There are other symptoms that can help us identify whether the tree’s lean is dangerous, like the state of the roots or the soil surrounding the trunk. If you’re at all concerned, contact Joseph Tree and schedule an inspection with a certified arborist.
Hire Certified Arborists to Storm-proof Your Trees
Don’t wait to storm-proof your trees until after a major storm. Reach out to Joseph Tree and schedule an inspection and a free estimate to better understand how stable your trees are. We can prune the trees to remove decaying or dead limbs, improve soil quality, and implement a proper care routine for the trees. Preventative care can make a significant difference and helps trees make it through the intense weather seasons without being severely damaged.