Tree Trimming in Twin Falls, ID

The five reasons people call us to prune

Deadwood

Dry, brittle, bark-slipping branches sitting up in the canopy. They are the pieces that come down on a car in the first hard gust. Elm, honey locust and ash in the older parts of Twin Falls carry a lot of it once they get age on them, and clearing it is the single highest-value trim you can buy.

End weight

Silver maple, cottonwood and Siberian elm grow long, heavy, poorly attached limbs. Shortening those ends back to a solid lateral branch takes the leverage out of them. This is the work that keeps a tree from tearing itself apart during a wet spring wind, and it is why we push weight reduction over cabling on most residential trees here.

Clearance

Limbs on the roof, limbs over the driveway, limbs blocking the sidewalk in front of the house. Branches resting on shingles hold moisture and give squirrels a bridge. On the tighter streets near downtown we do a lot of garage and alley clearance.

Structure on young trees

The cheapest tree work you will ever buy. A maple in a five-year-old subdivision out toward Pole Line Road can be shaped in twenty minutes so it never develops the double leader that would split it in half at thirty years old. Nobody calls about this and everybody should.

Light and air

Thinning a dense canopy so grass will grow underneath and so wind passes through instead of pushing against a solid sail. Done properly this means removing selected branches throughout the crown, not stripping the interior and leaving tufts on the ends.

What we will not do

We do not top trees. Cutting a canopy off at a flat height produces a burst of weak sprouts attached to nothing but the outer bark, and in five years you have a taller, heavier, more dangerous tree with rot running down every cut. If someone quoted you a cheap price to "take the top out," that is what you are buying.

We do not spike a tree we intend to keep. Climbing spurs leave a wound every step. They belong on removals only.

We do not flush cut. Every cut is made just outside the branch collar, the slightly swollen ring where the branch meets the trunk, so the tree can seal it. Flush cuts open the trunk itself to decay.

When to prune in this climate

Late winter, roughly January through March, is the best window for most deciduous trees in Twin Falls. The structure is visible with the leaves off, the tree is dormant, and the cuts close fast when growth starts.

Two local exceptions matter. Elms should not get big pruning wounds during the warm months when beetles that carry Dutch elm disease are active. And ornamental pear, apple and crabapple are best left alone in wet spring weather, because fresh cuts are an open door for fire blight.

Deadwood and anything actually hazardous comes out whenever we find it. Safety does not wait for a season.

What you get

• A walk-around before we start so you know exactly what is coming off
• Climbing or bucket access, whichever the site takes
• Brush chipped on site, larger wood cut and stacked or hauled
• Beds and lawn raked and blown when we finish

Sometimes we get up in a tree and find the problem is bigger than the pruning plan. If a trunk is hollow or the lean has already moved, removal is the honest answer and we will say so before you have paid us for a trim that will not help. If the canopy is thinning from the top down rather than shedding deadwood, that usually points at a treatable disease rather than a pruning problem. And if a limb is already down across your driveway, we can clear a fallen limb the same day rather than putting you on next week's schedule.

Call for a free look at the tree and a written price for exactly the work described.