Pruning your tree is an important part of keeping your yard healthy, and winter is a great time to do it! This is when your tree is dormant, which offers many benefits.
It’s a good idea to wait till late winter after the harshest weather has passed.
5 Advantages to Pruning Your Tree in Winter
- More Efficient: When the ground is frozen, there is less likelihood that equipment will damage your yard. This results in faster work, lower costs, and better outcomes.
- Reduces the Risk of Spreading Disease: Similarly to when you have a cut on your skin that gets infected, pruning a tree results in a weak spot in the tree where disease can penetrate. During the winter, the bacteria, fungi, and insects that can infect your tree in spring and summer aren’t around, so of course, they can’t harm your tree.
- Easier to See Tree Structure: Without leaves in the way, it’s easy to spot branches that may be in danger of falling.
- Better Appearance When Spring Hits: When the warmer weather comes around, a tree that was pruned in winter will have a healthy appearance. Proper pruning results in a burst of new growth.
- Less Stress on Trees: When you prune a tree too late in the summer or during autumn, it tends to trigger new growth that is quickly killed by cold weather. In winter, you don’t have to worry about that. Since the tree is dormant, pruning won’t trigger new growth. It also gives trees plenty of time to fully heal before spring, so they are better protected against insects, bacteria, and funguses.