Tree Pruning in Hertfordshire

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Pruning covers most of what actually gets done to trees. It is the work that keeps a tree the right size for the space, lets light into a garden, takes the weight off a limb somebody is worried about, and keeps a young tree growing into a good shape rather than a difficult one.

The difference between pruning and simply cutting is where the cut goes.

The Kinds of Pruning

Crown thinning

Removing a proportion of the branches throughout the crown without changing its size or outline. This is the one for light — it turns solid shade into dappled shade and leaves the tree looking the same shape from the street.

Crown lifting

Taking off the lowest branches to raise the clearance underneath. Useful over a path, a drive, a lawn you want to mow or a road. Very often the whole answer to a tree somebody thought needed reducing.

Deadwooding

Taking out the dead material and leaving the live crown alone. Where the concern is things falling, this is usually all that is needed, and it changes nothing about the tree's appearance.

Formative pruning

On young trees. A few careful cuts in the first years produce a tree with sound structure, which is considerably cheaper than dealing with a bad fork at thirty years old.

Selective and clearance pruning

Individual branches over a roof, into a gutter, across a boundary or rubbing against something.

Where the Cut Goes

This is what separates pruning from hacking. A branch being removed is cut just outside the collar — the slight swelling where it meets the stem — because that is the tissue the tree uses to seal the wound. Cut flush and it cannot seal; leave a long stub and the stub dies back and decay gets in behind it.

A branch being shortened is cut back to a side branch large enough to take over as the new leading growth, which is the difference between a reduction and a topping.

What Our Tree Pruning Service Covers

• Crown thinning for light
• Crown lifting for clearance over paths, drives and lawns
• Deadwood removal
• Selective branch removal over roofs, gutters and boundaries
• Formative pruning on young trees
• Fruit tree pruning
• Pollarding, where a tree is already on a cycle
• All arisings chipped and removed

Timing

Winter suits most trees. The exceptions are the ones that bleed heavily in late winter — birch, maple and walnut, which are pruned in summer instead — and cherries and plums, which are pruned in summer to avoid silver leaf and canker infecting winter wounds. Spring-flowering ornamentals are pruned just after they flower, or you lose next year's blossom.

Nesting birds are protected from roughly March to August, so the tree is checked before anything is cut in that window.

How Often

Less often than people assume. A thinning or a lifting done properly holds for several years, and pruning the same tree every season tends to produce dense congested regrowth rather than a better tree. The exceptions are pollards and formal shapes, which are on a deliberate cycle because they are being kept to a form they would not hold naturally.

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We cover the whole county. Each town has its own tree surgery page covering the ground, the plots and the access that shape the work there.

Tree Pruning — Common Questions

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