While winter is still underway and won’t fully give way to spring for a few more months, now is the perfect time to start preparing for the seasonal change. Spring rainstorms can cause unpredictable damage to trees, especially, often in ways that are difficult to fully prevent. However, there are proactive steps you can take to reduce risk and better protect them if they are around your home or place of business. Our role is to help preserve your trees while educating you on proper tree care, and this is an important conversation we’re excited to share with you.
In this blog, we will run through the best ways to prepare your trees for storms and other weather emergencies you will face during the spring season.
Preparing for Rain Storms and High Winds in Spring
The first thing that should be addressed first and foremost is the most important step in protecting your trees. This step can go for anything you do with your trees, even if you weren’t preparing for a major weather event. Proper inspection beforehand is what you should always do first. If you jump the gun and mess with the tree before understanding how healthy it is, then you may make it worse before you’ve even begun.
Early detection of a sign of good tree health or maybe an issue that it is suffering from that’s causing it to die will change the next steps in your process. Addressing points of concern can allow us to come in, provide a second opinion, and outline the next steps. If you need an arborist to come and give you a quote, we always have one ready on standby.
Now that that’s noted, what can you do to prepare for a rainstorm or high winds? There are several steps you can take here:
Tree Trimming and Tree Pruning
Photo credit: https://landscapedesignftworth.com/tree-services/pruning-trimming/
The job of tree trimming and tree pruning is to help remove any dead or weakened branches on your trees. During a storm, most likely, if those branches are left untouched, then there is cause for concern that they snap off and become a hazard to public safety and property damage.
Here in Buffalo and Western New York, we are not near where hurricane season is prominent, but we do still get heavy rains and winds, so you must prune and trim your trees before the season begins.
Speaking of wind, there’s a way in which you can reduce wind resistance on the tree when a storm happens. This brings up tree pruning again, but specifically around pruning the tree canopy. Here in Buffalo and WNY, there is an abundance of oak trees and maple trees. Trees that have denser canopies, which means they will catch wind more often than not and suffer more damage than other trees. Pruning them will help reduce that resistance the wind will have.
Tree Fortification and Support
Photo credit: https://landscapedesignftworth.com/tree-services/pruning-trimming/
If you REALLY want to go the extra mile and go full on with the level of support that you give to your trees, then you can implement a good level of fortification. Typically, you would do this by installing a cabling system that holds your tree down into the ground.
If you can already tell your tree is a bit unstable, then that might be required regardless. Proper staking and cabling to hold it down is something that works for both younger and older-aged trees too. Even then, a tree can still come out of the ground if the wind and rainstorms are strong enough. If you still feel it’s too much of a risk even with a cable support system, then tree removal would be your best option.
The Future of Major Weather Events
The final point we want to address is an educational emphasis that comes with understanding the ever-changing world we live in, particularly in relation to major weather events. Here in Buffalo and WNY, this is a part of the country that has much more abundant winter weather events than other states, but that doesn’t mean that major weather events get any less severe. Whether it’s a winter storm or a storm in spring, these weather events are getting more powerful as the climate continues to change.
That’s why it’s our job to help prepare you! We want to help educate you on these circumstances that come with each new year and then work to preserve what you have. We’ve already done a blog talking about winter storms and how to protect your trees from them, and we go into great detail on the processes of tree trimming, tree pruning, and tree removal on our website. If you want to learn more, need a quote for inspection, or have any questions, reach out to us today!
Protecting Trees from Storms FAQ
How do I protect my trees from rainstorms in the Spring?
The way to protect your trees from rainstorms in the spring starts with a proper step-by-step process below:
- Start with a proper tree inspection to assess overall tree health (or call asking for an arborist to give a second opinion)
- Trim and prune your trees before the spring season begins by removing any dead or weakened branches (helps with reducing wind resistance, depending on what tree you are working on)
- Add structural support if needed through cabling and other means that hold down trees into the ground, preventing them from coming out of the ground