Tree Pruning

Norcrest Tree Service provides expert tree pruning and tree cabling and bracing services to keep our clients’ trees healthy and beautiful long-term. Tree pruning or trimming is a practice that is periodically required on all woody landscape plants. Whether for fruit trees, shrubs, conifers, or deciduous trees throughout their life cycles, Norcrest Tree Service can provide all your pruning needs. Our pruning services are categorized from mature and young to specialty. Contact us to request our tree pruning or tree cabling and bracing services.

Mature Pruning

On mature trees, proper pruning is required to remove dead and dying branches to maintain plant health and safety. This is referred to as cleaning. Research has now documented that thinning, the removal of live branches to reduce density - reduces wind resistance and subsequent storm damage.

Thinning should only be done on trees where the crown is “too dense”. A Norcrest Tree Service arborist has the training and experience to evaluate this attribute. Thinning should be concentrated on the outer portions of the canopy, leaving as many branches on the interior crown as possible. In some instances, the crown or single branches require a reduction in length. This improves the form and shape of the plant, eliminates interference with objects and structures, and compensates for structural weaknesses.

Lower branches may require pruning for similar reasons. This process, known as raising, can be used to increase the amount of light beneath the crown of a tree. Norcrest Tree Service’s arborists are trained to evaluate the condition of your trees. We can determine the types of tree trimming service required to balance your goals and those of managing plant health and safety.

Young Pruning

The time to prune might be earlier than you think. One type of pruning that is most frequently overlooked by consumers is the structural pruning of young trees. Trees evolved in forests where they tend to grow straight and lose lower branches due to competition for light. When planted in full sun on your landscape, many species tend to develop multiple stems or leaders. These are more prone to failure.

Lower branches tend to grow at the same rate as the terminal leader. This side branching results in weak attachments that also are likely to fail later in the life of the plant. So, caring for trees when they are young and growing quickly is critical to ensuring a strong framework for future growth. This practice uses pruning cuts to maintain a dominant stem as a point of origin unless multiple stem “clumps” are desired.

Branches are pruned so their size remains proportional to the stem diameter at their point of attachment. As growth continues, some tree branches are removed to ensure adequate spacing between permanent scaffold limbs. The shape of the tree is maintained to provide a natural open growth form typical of the species.

Specialty Pruning

Norcrest Tree Service’s arborists can also develop and maintain formal styles including pollarding and espalier. Fruit tree pruning techniques are increasingly popular as more consumers grow fruit-bearing plants in their gardens. Vista pruning is the judicious removal of branches to enhance a specific view. This is frequently performed for consumers in Gallatin county with valley or mountain views.

Tree Cabling & Bracing

Cables and braces are supplemental structural supports intended to reduce the risk of failure of weak branches and trees with multiple stems. Cables generally consist of extra high-strength steel and are installed in the upper crown of a tree. They are intended to limit the movement of the supported branches, so they are less likely to fail during storms (not like we get storms in Montana though, right?). Braces are thread rods that are installed through unions of weak branches and multiple stems to provide more rigid support from torsional forces that can occur in violent weather.