Dead branch removal is the tree trimming job people put off longest, and the one that gives least warning. A dead limb does not creak, lean or drop leaves to tell you it is going. It stays exactly where it is until the day it does not, which is why dead branch removal gets booked after the fact rather than before.
We do dead branch removal on mature trees across Paris and the County of Brant, from a single limb over a garage to a full clean-out of a large crown. Ring (226) 546-3814.
The assumption is that dead branch removal is a wind problem. It is not, particularly, and that is why it gets left.
A limb dies, dries, and loses the flexibility that let it move with the wind. What actually drops it is the moment the connection to the trunk finally decays through, and that is a slow process with no external trigger. Plenty come down on a still afternoon in July.
That is why dead branch removal over a driveway, a patio, a shed roof or a footpath gets dealt with on its own account, rather than being left until the tree is due a trim anyway.
Bare in July is the obvious one. If a limb has no leaf on it in high summer while the rest of the tree is in full leaf, it is dead.
Bark falling away in plates, leaving smooth pale wood underneath, is the next stage. Once bark is shedding, the wood beneath has been dead long enough to start drying.
Small twigs snapping off with a dry crack rather than bending. Green wood bends. Dead wood snaps.
Fungal brackets growing out of the limb or out of the union where it meets the trunk. That is decay that has already gone a long way, and it is a reason to have the whole tree looked at rather than just that branch.
A hanger is a branch that has already broken but has not reached the ground — caught up in the crown, hung on a lower limb, or swinging on a strip of bark.
Those are the ones to ring about the same day. There is no way to predict when a hanger drops and no way to make the ground under it safe except by getting it down. Keep people and cars out from underneath it until somebody with a rope can get to it.
If a hanger is resting on or near a hydro line, ring the utility before you ring us.
Emerald ash borer has been through the Grand River watershed since 2010 and the ash are still coming down. Dead branch removal on an ash is a different proposition from dead branch removal on a maple.
Ash that has been killed by the borer dries out unusually fast and gets brittle right through, including the union and the trunk. It tends to fail at the joints rather than snapping mid-limb, which is exactly where a climber's rope loads it.
So dead branch removal on a standing dead ash is done from a bucket, or the whole tree comes down from the ground, rather than climbing it and rigging off it. If your ash has been dead two or three seasons, the safe and cheap window has already passed and it only gets worse from here.
Point at the branch, or point at the tree and let us find them all. Somebody comes out, looks at the whole crown rather than the one limb you noticed, and sends back a written dead branch removal price. Ring (226) 546-3814, or start from the Paris Tree Service home page if you are not sure which service you need.
Very few jobs stop at one of these. Here is everything else we do.
Tree trimming and pruning is most of what we do in Paris, and most tree trimming is not about making a tree smaller. It is about taking weight off the wrong places, getting the dead material out, and cutting so the tree can seal what we cut.
View Tree Trimming and Pruning
Emergency storm damage cleanup is the call that comes at five in the morning, and it is the one part of tree trimming nobody plans for. A tree across the drive, a limb through the garage roof, a trunk resting on the car, or a branch left hanging over the front door with nothing holding it. Storm damage cleanup is answered outside working hours.
View Emergency Storm Damage Cleanup
Tree removal is the last option on the list, not the first, and we would rather talk you out of a tree removal than sell you one you did not need. But a dead, split, badly leaning or structurally finished tree beside a house is past what tree trimming can fix, and pretending otherwise costs more in the end.
View Tree Removal
Crown thinning and canopy reduction are the two kinds of tree trimming that make a large tree less of a liability without taking it out. Thinning takes density out of the crown; canopy reduction takes size off the outside of it. They solve different problems, they are constantly confused, and neither one is topping.
View Crown Thinning and Canopy Reduction
Tree cabling and bracing is how you keep a structurally suspect tree that is otherwise healthy and worth keeping, once tree trimming alone will not do it. A cable is a flexible support fitted high in the crown between two limbs or two stems; a brace is a rigid rod through a union that is already moving. Cabling and bracing limits movement, it does not repair the union.
View Tree Cabling and Bracing
Stump grinding and removal is the tree trimming job that turns a felled tree back into usable garden. A grinder takes the stump down below ground level in chips, so the area can be levelled, turfed, planted or paved. Stump grinding is quoted separately from taking the tree down.
View Stump Grinding and RemovalDescribe the tree and what is under it. Somebody attends, looks at the whole property, and returns a written scope with the debris and the exclusions spelled out.
The more you can tell us about the tree and the access, the more the first visit achieves. Only a way of reaching you is required. Would you sooner speak to someone? The number is (226) 546-3814.
