Since 2003 Central Kentucky Tree Service has been offering professional arborist services as a trusted tree service in Lexington, KY for the homes, farms and businesses of Lexington and the surrounding communities. Tree trimming and tree pruning are the same work under two names, and both start with a free on-site quote.
We use safe equipment to trim even the most daunting trees.
Tree trimming can be dangerous work. That is why you need the professionals from Central KY Tree Service.
Trimming covers four very different jobs. Knowing which one you are buying is the difference between a tree that looks better for a decade and a tree that has to come out in five years.
Crown cleaning. Taking out the dead, dying, diseased and broken limbs and nothing else. This is the most common job we do and the safest thing you can have done to a mature tree, because it removes the limbs most likely to come down on their own.
Crown thinning. Selectively removing interior limbs so light and wind move through the canopy instead of pushing against it. A dense, unthinned crown acts like a sail in a Bluegrass line storm. Thinning cuts that load without cutting the tree back.
Crown raising. Lifting the lower limbs for clearance: over a driveway so trailers stop scraping, off a roof and out of the gutters, above a sidewalk, or up out of a pasture where horses are stripping the bark.
Crown reduction. Shortening a tree that has outgrown its spot by cutting each limb back to a lateral branch big enough to take over as the new leader. Done properly it lowers the height and keeps the tree’s form.
Topping means cutting the main limbs back to stubs with no regard for where the next branch is. It is fast, it is cheap, and it is the single most damaging thing done to trees in Kentucky yards.
A topped tree does not stay short. It responds to the injury by pushing out a mass of fast, weak shoots right below every cut. Those shoots are attached to the outside of the stub rather than anchored in the wood, so within a few years you have a taller tree, denser than it was, made of limbs that snap in wind. Meanwhile every open stub is a door for decay, and the trunk underneath starts hollowing out where you cannot see it.
If you need a tree smaller, crown reduction is the way to do it. If someone quotes you a price to top one, get a second opinion.
A good share of our tree trimming service in Lexington is not about the tree’s health at all, it is about getting it off something. Limbs on the roof that drop wet leaves into the gutters and give squirrels a bridge. A low branch over the drive that hits the truck every time. Fence row growth pushing wire out of line. Canopy hanging into a pasture or an arena. Those are straightforward jobs and we quote them the same way, on site and free.
Brush goes through the chipper on site, cut ends get dragged out, and the lawn and drive are cleaned up before the crew pulls off. If you want the chips for beds, tell the foreman and we will leave them.
How often should a mature tree be trimmed? Most shade trees do well on a three to five year cycle. Young trees benefit from lighter, more frequent pruning to set good structure early, which is far cheaper than correcting it at forty feet.
Is tree pruning the same as tree trimming? In practice yes. Arborists tend to say pruning, homeowners tend to say trimming or tree cutting, and all three describe the same work.
Can trimming hurt the tree? It can, if too much comes off. The working rule is no more than about a quarter of the live canopy in a single season, and less on a tree already under stress.
There is a broken limb hanging in my tree right now. A hung limb can drop with no warning. Stay out from under it and call 859-333-7246, or see emergency tree service.
My ash tree is thinning from the top down. That pattern is usually emerald ash borer, not a trimming problem.
The tree is past saving. Then it is tree removal, and we will tell you that rather than sell you a trim.
We trim and prune trees at homes, farms and businesses in Lexington, Nicholasville, Wilmore, Georgetown, Versailles, Midway, Frankfort, Lawrenceburg, Paris, Cynthiana, Winchester, Mount Sterling, Richmond and Berea. For tree trimming in Lexington, KY, call 859-333-7246.