Tree Trimming & Pruning in Wilmington, NC

Tree trimming and pruning removes selected branches to lower risk, clear a roof or driveway, and keep a tree healthy, without taking the tree down. Around Wilmington, a lot of our pruning is about wind: getting dead limbs out before hurricane season, reducing long heavy limbs over a house, and clearing branches back from roofs and service lines. Done well, pruning can let a tree you love stay. Done badly, with topping or stripping out the inside of the crown, it can create the decay and weak regrowth that make a tree more likely to fail.

Pruning to the standard

The tree care industry follows ANSI A300, the American National Standard for tree care, which calls for cuts at the branch collar instead of flush cuts or stubs, removing no more of the living crown than the goal requires, and not topping trees. NC State Extension warns that severely pruned trees are more likely to decay and fail in strong winds. In practice, that means we would rather make a smaller number of well-placed cuts, such as removing a dead limb, shortening a long limb back to a healthy side branch, or taking out a crossing branch, than strip a tree.

Hurricane prep pruning

The goal before storm season is to take off the parts of a tree most likely to break. Dead and broken limbs come out first. Long, heavy limbs extending over a roof can be shortened to reduce leverage. Trees with two competing trunks can be pruned to favor one. For pines, which shed limbs readily, removing dead branches and checking the top is often enough. NC State Extension ranks live oaks among the most wind-resistant trees, so a well-pruned live oak is usually worth keeping. Laurel and water oaks get a closer look for decay at the same time, since pruning won't fix a rotten trunk.

Live oaks and protected trees

Large live oaks are among Wilmington's most valued trees, and the city treats big native trees like them as specimen trees. Pruning a tree isn't the same as removing it, but heavy cutting that harms a protected tree can cause problems, and in the city's local historic districts tree work needs particular care. Street trees in the right-of-way belong to the city, which maintains more than 30,000 of them, so trimming a city tree needs the city's approval. On private live oaks, we prune lightly and on purpose: deadwood, clearance over roofs and driveways, and weight reduction on long limbs.