Tree care
The most valuable thing in the yard, and the easiest to cut wrong
Canopy work, deadwood and recovery care for Central Texas trees, timed to the year the tree is actually having.
Chapter 01
With a Central Texas live oak, when matters as much as what
A live oak is the most valuable thing in most Hill Country yards and the easiest to damage with well meant work. Cutting at the wrong point in the year, or opening too much canopy at once, costs a tree years it does not get back.
So the answer to a lot of tree questions here is not yet. Knowing which month a cut belongs in is most of the skill, and it is the part that separates tree care from tree cutting.
A mature live oak spreading over mown turf on a property near Buda
Deadwood, canopy and what the tree is telling you
Deadwood comes out because it is the part that falls, and it falls on the things underneath it. Canopy work is about weight and light: what the limb is carrying, and what the grass below it is getting.
That is also where the tree work and the lawn work stop being separate jobs. A canopy that has closed over completely is the reason the turf under it thins out, and thinning the canopy is often the actual fix for the patch of lawn that will not take.
Chapter 03
After a drought and after a hard freeze
Central Texas gives trees both extremes, sometimes in the same year. A tree that has been through a long dry stretch or a hard freeze is not on its normal schedule, and treating it as though it is does damage.
Recovery work is slower and more conservative than routine trimming. Less is taken, and it is taken over more than one visit, because a stressed tree cannot pay for a large cut all at once.
Austin Excel, Licensed and insured. Texas Department of Agriculture pest-control license TPCL #786979. Call (737) 201-3059.