Here’s how you can set your trees up for spring success

By Adam Cook

If you peek at your trees in February, it’s hard to visualize anything but barren branches against a white blanket of snow. While any notions of a green leafy canopy may seem distant and remote, it’s time to spring into action.

In the winter, trees stand in stark relief and are dormant, making it an ideal time to prune without interrupting the growth cycle.

In and around Medina County, the owners of Titan Arbor Care, certified arborists Jay Dalton, Jeremy Rolf and Tyler Honsaker, are out braving February’s frigid temperatures taking in clients’ trees.

“When the leaves fall, you can clearly see the trees’ structure,” Jay says. “Winter is the opportune time to make the call for pruning, before your trees start to bud in the next few short months.”

In the winter, spring, summer and fall, certified arborists use a trained eye to spot dead or diseased branches that need to come down to keep the decay from spreading.

“It’s a good time to do everything tree work-related,” Jay says. “Right now, we can do everything people have been waiting to do all year round, like pruning, tree and stump removal. In the spring, we can do tree planting and now is the ideal time to get on our schedule. When weather permits, we can do it all.”

Pruning extends your trees’ life span while significantly reducing hazards to your family, neighbors, and home. After all, it’s only a matter of time before March comes in like a lion, shaking and rattling overgrown branches and significantly increasing the risk of dead weight falling from its perch.

There’s no need to throw caution to the wind.

“You want to be able to envision a bird flying through the crown,” Jay says. “If you can’t, you want to prune to let the wind flow. The tree looks better, and you won’t have to worry about it toppling over in a big storm.”

Even in the dead of winter, Titan Arbor Care can come to the rescue, removing exposed roots and stumps lurking treacherously under the white blanket of snow so familiar to us Northeast Ohioans.

We know accidents can happen any time.

“Our stump grinding machine is portable enough to go anywhere and goes deep enough to where we’re sure we’re going to get the thing out,” Jay says. “All our equipment is compact enough to move around with minimal disruption.”

None of us wants to see our yard torn up and turned into a desolate wasteland while we wait for spring. And with Titan Arbor Care we don’t have to.

“We still protect your yard with our ground protection mats to protect the turf and avoid ruts,” Jay says.

Titan Arbor Care’s 4x8-foot polymer sheets cover the ground, distribute the weight of foot traffic, and minimize wear and tear on yards from heavy machinery. The ground protection mats are more efficient than the plain plywood pieces some tree care providers employ, if they even bother to take that additional step.

“We take every step to leave your yard better than we found it,” Jay says. “We haul away the grindings, spread fresh topsoil, and plant grass right away. So, you’re left with a nice, clean, finished yard. If we didn’t, to us it would seem like an incomplete job.”

By immediately planting grass, Titan Arbor Care goes one better than most tree care providers. The company plants grass every time on every job that calls for it.

In fact, February may be the best month to sow grass because dormant seedlings will spread this way and that way, evenly finding a footing as the ground freezes and thaws and freezes until finally sprouting in the moisture-rich spring soil.

Titan Arbor Care takes pride in being a community partner.

When called, Jay, Jeremy, Tyler and their crews help the Strongsville Service Department Division of Forestry maintain the city’s urban tree canopy of more than 112,000 trees.

“We do a lot of the larger tree pruning and some hazardous tree removals,” Jay says. “Our owners are in three different school districts, Brunswick, Cloverleaf and Wadsworth, and we’re real proud of where we live and the greater community we call home.”

There’s magic to tree-lined streets that none of us would seek to dispel.

“Some trees reach a point where it looks like the only option is removal, but there might be other options such as corrective pruning,” Jay says.

Even so, the reality is there are many reasons to remove them.

Maybe now that you’re getting a good look, you realize a tree may be too close to the house, threatening the foundation or just detracting from the yard’s beauty.

Whatever your needs are, there’s no sense in waiting when you can spring into action.

“We’re not going to hibernate,” Jay says. “But, making the call now would be better for you, your yard, and your trees.”

Guard your yard. Call 330-247-2706 or 216-586-6955. Titan Arbor Care is standing by. For a complete list of services, visit TitanArborCare.com.