How to put some money in your pocket with fall tree pruning ahead of Wine Country’s winter storms
When you take in the view of the trees on your property, do you find yourself thinking about what a major storm will do? The prospect of a branch making an uninvited landing on the roof or car, or even the power lines, is enough to give one pause. Then there is the question of what a fallen limb will set you back come winter.
Asking these questions is only natural, and the fall season is when to be doing it. Image Tree Pros (or as some know us, Image Tree Service) has been at the side of Wine Country homeowners for property protection since 1990. We are at (707) 394-9078 if one wants to have a word about putting the trees in order before the weather does.
The case for timing in Wine Country
In Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Marin counties the weather has its own way of doing things. The dry of summer is replaced by a wet and windy winter and the storms can be unforgiving. You will have saturated soil that makes root systems less secure, and overgrown canopies make easy work of strong winds. A dead or feeble branch will not hold on forever.
Fall is the ideal time for this. The heat is gone, the trees are winding down for the year and the storms are still off in the distance. Prune now and you have taken care of the problem before it is an emergency.
The cost of inaction
It is easy to see pruning as something you can do without until you factor in the price of a branch giving way. Between the cleanup and the repairs and an emergency call, the tab mounts up. In January, reactive work is seldom as affordable as what is done preventively in the fall.
A bit of forethought in the fall goes a long way to shield your finances:
- Put in the work to get rid of weak or dead limbs so they do not end up on your fence or vehicle
- Open up a thick canopy and the wind will go through it rather than toppling the tree
- Take the weight off branches that are prone to snapping under rain and wind
- Make sure limbs are clear of power lines, a step in avoiding outages or fire
- Spot any decay or disease while there is still time to save the tree
- Keep your hardscape and landscaping from being trashed by debris
These are all repairs one would otherwise be footing the bill for, and in the middle of a storm there is a premium for the service.
Then there is the matter of wildfire
Homeowners in other parts of the country may not consider it but our part of the world is high risk for wildfire. Crowded and dead vegetation is nothing but fuel. We like to think of fall as a good opportunity to do your storm prep and put in some fire prevention clearance at the same time, establishing defensible space around the home. It spares you from having to be billed for two separate visits and leaves the property in better shape for whatever trouble the season may bring.
Credentials count
You can weaken a tree with a bad cut as easily as you can strengthen it, so not every job of pruning is created equal. Our team at Image Tree Pros are ISA Certified Arborists and we are TCIA Accredited. We have Certified Tree Care Safety Professionals on staff and the ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification to judge a tree’s likelihood of failure. We are fully insured and hold CSLB license #719689.
With that kind of training we can distinguish a sound limb from one that is a true risk. It means the work one pays for is the work that is necessary.
We are a local family business
We have put in over 7,500 projects in the communities of Sonoma, Napa, Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Novato, Windsor, Penngrove, Calistoga, Kenwood, St. Helena, Bodega Bay, Yountville, Glen Ellen, Cotati, Petaluma, American Canyon and beyond. Being here ourselves we are familiar with the soil, the trees and the kind of storms we get.
Our hours are 7:30am to 4:30pm Monday to Friday, though we have 24/7 emergency services for when a storm does not abide by the clock. We also provide free estimates so there is no hard sell in finding out what your property calls for.
Winter in Wine Country is on its way and the time to prune is before the first storm, not in its wake. Get in touch with Image Tree Pros at (707) 394-9078 and we will set up a free estimate to have your property in good order.