Late summer in southern Ontario brings the kind of fast, violent storms that snap limbs and drop trees. The branches that come down first are almost always the ones that were already dead or weak — and those are exactly the ones you can deal with beforehand.
Why dead branches are the first to go
A dead limb has no flexibility left. Where a living branch bends and sheds a gust, dead wood is brittle and simply breaks — and a heavy deadwood limb falling from height does real damage to whatever's below. High wind, sudden downpours and the occasional August microburst find that weakness instantly.
- Deadwood over targets — limbs above the roof, driveway, deck or a neighbour's yard.
- Weak unions — tight forks and included bark that split under load.
- Hanging limbs — anything already partly broken from an earlier storm.
Prevention beats cleanup
Removing hazardous and dead limbs before storm season is some of the highest-value tree work you can do. A scheduled deadwood prune is a fraction of the cost — and the disruption — of an emergency call after a limb is through the garage roof. It also keeps you out of the queue when a big storm has everyone in the region calling at once.
You can pay to remove a dead limb on a calm Tuesday, or pay to remove it from your roof on a stormy Saturday. Same limb, very different day.
Get ahead of the season
If you've got obvious deadwood or limbs hanging over something important, late summer is the time to clear them. Book a deadwood and hazard prune — and if a storm beats us to it, our 24/7 line at (226) 263-2319 is always answered by a person.