Core service
Trimming & Pruning
Cut for a reason — clearance off the house, weight off a bad limb, shape back into an ornamental that has gotten away from you.
Pruning is the best money you will ever spend on a tree, because it is the work that keeps a removal from being necessary. Getting limbs off a roof stops the shingle wear and the gutter clogs. Taking weight off a long horizontal limb stops it from tearing out of the trunk in the next wet snow.
On a mature oak or maple we are looking for deadwood, crossing limbs, and anything overhanging something expensive. On ornamentals — Japanese maple, dogwood, flowering cherry, arborvitae — it is a different job entirely, closer to shaping, and cutting one like a shade tree ruins it for years.
What we will not do is top a tree. Cutting the leaders off to shorten it produces a mess of weak regrowth that is more dangerous in five years than what you started with. If someone quoted you that, get a second opinion.
What the job includes
- Clearance pruning off roofs, siding, service drops and driveways
- Deadwood and hanging limbs taken out of the canopy
- Weight reduction on overextended or split-prone limbs
- Shaping and thinning on ornamentals and smaller specimen trees
- Brush hauled out and the area raked down
Sound familiar?
When to call about this
- Limbs are scraping the roof or the siding when it is windy
- You cannot get a truck up the driveway without hitting branches
- There is deadwood hanging in the canopy over a walkway or a patio
- A limb split partway through and is still up there
- An ornamental has doubled in size and lost its shape
Questions
About Tree Trimming & Pruning
Do you take the wood and the brush with you?
Yes, hauling it out is part of the job unless you tell us you want the wood left for firewood. Cleanup is the thing our customers bring up most, and the standard is that when we pull out you should not be able to tell where we were working except that the tree is gone.
Can I just have the tree cut shorter instead of removed?
Sometimes, and it is worth asking. But topping — cutting the leaders off to shorten a tree — is not that. It produces a burst of weak regrowth attached to a wound that does not close, and in five years you have a more dangerous tree than the one you started with. Real alternatives are crown reduction on specific limbs, or taking weight off the side that is over your house.
What if the tree is on the property line?
In Massachusetts you can prune branches and roots that cross onto your property, at your own expense, back to the line — but the tree itself belongs to whoever owns the ground the trunk stands on, and you cannot take it down without them. If the trunk straddles the line it belongs to both of you. The short version: talk to your neighbor before you book the work, and get it in writing if the tree is coming out.
Do you work in the winter?
Yes. Winter is often the better time for it — the ground is firm, the leaves are down so we can actually see the structure of the tree, and the lawn takes less of a beating. Dormant pruning is easier on the tree too.
Free same-day estimates
Get an estimate on tree trimming & pruning
The more you can tell us — how big, how close to the house or the wires, how soon — the closer the number is before anyone drives out.
Rather just call?
(508) 510-2899Call or text. If it is a tree on a wire, call your electric utility first — the number is on your bill.