Can oak trees be trimmed in the spring? Here is the best time to prune Oak trees.
Oak trees are among the slower-growing trees. This means that the oak tree around your property probably existed long before you were born or purchased it.
Pruning Oak trees is very important as the benefits are obvious. Still, have doubts over what these benefits are?
The shade, beauty, and oxygen produced are priceless, aren’t they?
When to Trim Oak Trees
Our focus isn’t on how these trees develop or the length of time required for oak trees to attain maturity.
Rather, it is about the best time to trim such trees. Like everything else, oak trees require some form of maintenance.
However, old (tall) or young these trees are, maintaining them adds to their beauty and health.
How Much Maintenance Is Needed?
Keeping your oak trees healthy and safe doesn’t require so much maintenance. However, carrying out such maintenance requires knowing how to go about it. Time is also of the essence as trimming oak trees at an improper time or season can cause stress and damage to it.
In any case, the need for maintenance isn’t so much.
The Worst Time to Prune Oak
What’s the worst time of year to trim oak trees? But that isn’t the question right? Well, before we get to the heart of our discussion, it is necessary to also state or acknowledge the opposite of what we seek to find out. That is the worst time for trimming oak trees.
The worst time of year to trim your oak trees will be in springtime!
Is there a reason why it’s bad to cut back on oak trees during this time? There is! Trimming oak trees in spring makes them more vulnerable to disease attacks. Oak wilt fungus is quite notorious for infecting and damaging oak trees during spring.
The climate of your location will determine the exact period when it’s most dangerous to trim oak trees. The time of year to avoid carrying out this type of maintenance will fall between early February (1st) and early June. Still yet, many other experts recommend the period between April to October as a bad time to trim Oaks due to Oak wilt fungus.
Best Time To Trim Oak Trees
Although we deviated a bit to discuss the worst-case scenario regarding the least ideal time to trim oaks, it was necessary to help you get a better understanding. Coming back to our main topic, there is an ideal time to get the job done. The best time of year to trim oak trees is in the coldest time of year.
Winter is the ideal time to trim your oak tree(s). So, why is it so? Why is this time of year the most ideal for trimming oak trees? The reasons are simple! The first reasons are the absence of bugs. What bugs? Oak trees are prone to such diseases as oak wilt. These are caused by bugs that aren’t active during winter.
During winter, oak trees like many other tree types shed their leaves. This allows for more visibility of the tree’s structure. This is a condition anyone seeking to trim their trees will like to work in. The ability to observe the oak’s limbs or branches allows for greater precision and a more detailed and effective job.
In other words, it is much easier to trim an oak tree in the winter than at other times when the leaves are full.
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Weather Differences
The best time of year for trimming oaks might differ from one location to the next. This is based on the fact that certain locations experience differential weather conditions.
So, pointing to a specific time of year might not be the best way to identify an ideal period for trimming oaks.
How then can this be resolved? It’s quite easy! The coldest period of winter doesn’t apply to all locations. Therefore, this should be quite easy for you to identify. In other words, you should have a better idea of when the coldest month of winter starts in your location. That will be the best time to trim your oak tree(s).
It will also be fair to also state the increasing unpredictability of weather around the world. Whatever the case is, the coldest time of year is your best time to get the job done. However warm weather can come unexpectedly. This condition no matter how brief can cause problems to the trees. So, what do you do?
Under such situations, it is best to protect the cut areas of the tree by painting such areas with a tree wound sealer.
Although this isn’t a surefire way of keeping the trees from exposure to infection and diseases, it’s still a useful way to limit the damage that might result.
What Happens In The Case Of An Emergency?
Whether you like it or not, tree emergencies are likely to occur. What type of emergencies you might ask. Several!
Sometimes strong winds can result in injuries to oak trees. We are talking about injuries such as broken branches etc. Under such circumstances, some form of trimming and treatment will be needed.
An emergency like broken branches or limbs resulting from strong winds etc might happen not within the ideal time for trimming.
In other words, such an event might happen when it’s not the winter season or during warmer weather conditions. This isn’t a hopeless situation as there are ways to still remedy the problem.
To treat the affected part of the tree, some form of minimal trimming is required. This should be followed immediately by applying a sealer such as latex paint or other forms of tree wound sealer.
What this does is that it masks the odor from the fresh wound which helps stop insects from coming around.
This (applying a wound sealer) might not be necessary when such an accident happens during the peak winter season.
If you’ve read to this point, you should have answers to this pressing question. The best time for trimming an oak tree has been identified. This approach has been applied with significant success. Great results can be obtained when done rightly.