Tree trimming and pruning in West Carson City (ZIP 89703)

On the west side the question is rarely how to shape a tree. It is how to keep a very large one standing safely over a house, a street and the neighbor's fence for another twenty years.

At a glance

• About 13% of homes in ZIP 89703 predate 1960, about half predate 1980
• Dead wooding, crown reduction and cabling for mature trees
• Crown raising where yards meet the brush on the west edge
• About 13 minutes from our yard without traffic

What does an old west side tree need?

Usually three things, in this order. First, the dead wood comes out, because a dead limb the size of a fence post is the part most likely to land on something. That work has its own page: dead wooding.

Second, the long, heavy limbs that reach over a roof or a street are shortened back to a side branch that can take over. That is crown reduction, and it is the opposite of topping. Third, the arborist looks at the main forks. A tree with two trunks pressed together in a tight V may be a candidate for cabling and bracing instead of a saw.

Can a big tree be made smaller?

A little, and carefully. The pruning standard our industry follows, ANSI A300, does not accept topping as pruning. Cutting the top off an old tree leaves large wounds and a flush of weak shoots, and the tree ends up more of a hazard than before. Why topping a tree is not pruning explains what happens inside the wood.

What an arborist can do is take weight off the ends and bring the outline in. If the tree is simply too big for where it stands, we will say so and talk about removal honestly.

How is this much tree reached?

From the street or driveway where we can, with a 75-foot Altec boom truck. Where fences, additions and gardens have filled in under the crown, which about 78% single-family housing and decades of landscaping tend to produce, a climber goes up on ropes and lowers each piece by hand. The arborist decides which during the estimate.

Does pruning help on the fire side of town?

Yes. The 2004 Waterfall Fire, mapped at 8,765 acres, is one of 17 fires of 300 acres or more mapped within about 10 miles of this ZIP since 1980. The USDA Forest Service has no separate record for 89703; for Carson City as a whole it rates wildfire risk to homes higher than 98.5% of US communities.

On lots near the hills, pruning does two jobs. It lifts the lowest branches so a grass fire has no ladder into the crown, and it clears limbs from the roof and chimney. Both are part of defensible space in West Carson City, and the west side checklist walks the yard zone by zone.

When is the work done?

Hazards and dead wood, any time of year. Planned pruning of the old deciduous shade trees is done in late winter while they are dormant. Conifers are pruned in early spring and summer.