There is one certainty about our weather: storms will come, and severe storms will test every tree on your property. A little preparation goes a long way.
Before storm season
Structural pruning
Remove competing leaders, crossing branches, and weak V-shaped attachments. Trees with good form bend rather than break.
Focus on:
- Co-dominant stems
- Rubbing branches
- Dead or diseased wood
- Branches aimed at buildings
Root health
Compaction, construction scars, and shallow planting make trees unstable.
Watch for new leans, exposed or circling roots, one-sided decline, or a tree that rocks in moderate wind.
Trees with higher risk in wind:
- Cottonwood, brittle wood and big limb drops
- Bradford or Callery pear, weak branch structure
- Silver maple, fast growth with weaker wood
- Ash with EAB damage, highly hazardous
Trees that are usually more resilient:
- Bur oak, strong wood and deep roots
- Kentucky coffeetree, sturdy structure and wind tolerance
- Honeylocust, small leaflets reduce wind sail
After the storm
Look for hanging branches, new leans, cracks in major limbs or trunks, uplifted soil, and any contact with power lines.
Call a pro for anything near utilities, anything over a structure, large limbs, new leans toward buildings, or anything you can’t reach from the ground.
While preventive pruning costs money, emergency removals can run into the thousands, plus property damage. Insurance usually covers (but doesn’t always cover) damage to insured structures. Some insurances even cover tree removal, and it may even be helpful to take photos of your healthy trees before storm season for insurance purposes. Check your policy before storm season.
