Tree Trimming & Pruning in Naperville, IL

Tree trimming and pruning is often what keeps a removal from being needed. A maple with a heavy limb over the bedroom, a honeylocust brushing the gutters, a spruce whose lower branches block the driveway view, an oak carrying deadwood over the patio: most of these can be fixed with careful cuts rather than taking the tree down. Good pruning follows the ANSI A300 standard and ISA guidance, which means cutting at the branch collar, removing no more of the live crown than the tree can afford, and never topping a tree.

What pruning does here

Naperville storms test weak structure. Wet spring snow, freezing rain and summer thunderstorm gusts find the tight V-shaped forks, long heavy limbs and old wounds on a tree. Thinning a dense crown lets wind pass through. Shortening long, overextended limbs reduces the lever that tears them out. Removing a competing leader on a young tree prevents the split that comes years later. Taking out deadwood removes the pieces most likely to fall on someone.

Timing for oaks

Oak wilt, a fungal disease that kills red oaks quickly and weakens white and bur oaks, is spread partly by sap beetles drawn to fresh wounds. The usual advice in northern Illinois is to avoid pruning oaks during the growing season, roughly April through July, unless a limb is broken or dangerous. Late fall and winter are the safer times for oak work. We schedule oak pruning around that.

Clearance work

• Roofs and gutters: limbs cut back so they do not scrape shingles or drop leaves straight into the gutters.
• Driveways and sidewalks: lower limbs raised so cars, trucks and people pass under safely.
• Service lines: we can clear small branches near the line that runs from the pole to your house only where it is safe and allowed; main distribution lines are the utility's job, which in Naperville is generally the city's electric utility.
• Neighbors: limbs overhanging a property line can be cut back to the line, ideally after talking to your neighbor.

What we will not do

We do not top trees. Cutting a tree's main stems back to stubs causes a flush of weak, fast sprouts that break off in storms and decay that spreads into the trunk. If a tree is too big for its spot and topping looks like the only option, removal and replanting is usually the better answer, and we will tell you so.