Professional Tree Trimming and Pruning Services in Edmonton
Edmonton Arborists’ expert team stays ahead with ongoing training, delivering top-notch tree services with the care and respect your tree deserves.
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Proper, routine pruning & trimming are critical for tree health, beauty, and safety.
Trees are the unsung heroes of our cities, working tirelessly to keep us cool, freshen our air, and make our neighborhoods beautiful. Yet, they’re like fish out of water in our concrete jungles. Just as we wouldn’t adopt a puppy without understanding its needs, we owe it to our urban trees to learn how to support their well-being.
Edmonton Arborists’ expert team stays ahead with ongoing training, delivering top-notch tree services with the care and respect your tree deserves.
Read our article on when and why to prune trees here.
Benefits
1. Enhanced Disease Resistance
Many fungi and pathogens thrive in dark, poorly ventilated environments. By pruning to improve air and light circulation within the tree canopy, you reduce the risk of diseases and promote a healthier tree.
2. Higher Quality Fruits and Flowers
Without the natural constraints of a forest environment, urban trees often develop overcrowded canopies. Proper pruning ensures the tree directs its limited resources to produce healthier, more vibrant fruits and flowers.
3. Improved Aesthetic Appeal
Neglected trees can look unkempt and out of place in urban landscapes. Regular pruning shapes the tree, resulting in a clean, visually pleasing appearance that enhances your property.
4. Increased Stability and Safety
Urban trees with unchecked growth can develop unstable horizontal limbs, which are prone to breaking under their own weight. For fruiting trees, the added weight of heavy fruit loads increases this risk. Pruning removes hazardous limbs and prevents damage to the tree or surrounding property.
5. Longer Lifespan
Healthy, well-maintained trees can thrive for generations. Strategic pruning by a skilled arborist ensures your tree grows in harmony with its environment, avoiding interference with structures, walkways, or itself.
6. Harmonious Growth in Urban Settings
Through progressive branch training, professional arborists help trees grow cohesively into their environment, preventing damage to the tree and nearby property. This ensures a safe, beautiful landscape for years to come.
The Goal
1. Improved Canopy Health Through Selective Thinning
Professional pruning helps thin the canopy, allowing light and air to circulate freely. In nature, decomposing organisms recycle unproductive growth, but in urban environments, this natural process often works against the tree, spreading decay to healthy areas. By selectively thinning the canopy, your tree experiences better overall growth, improved health, and enhanced vigor.
2. Safe Removal of Dead or Problematic Growth
In forests, trees naturally “self-prune” by shedding dead branches over time. However, in urban settings, this slow process can become a significant hazard. Dead branches not only pose risks to property and safety but also attract pests and allow decay to spread. Regular pruning removes these hazards and protects the healthy parts of your tree.
3. Structural Training for Safety and Growth
Much like training a young puppy, proper tree training starts early. Skilled arborists guide the tree’s natural growth to shape its structure safely away from walking areas, buildings, and other property. This minimally invasive process promotes long-term health and ensures your tree grows harmoniously in its urban environment.
4. Shaping for Aesthetic Appeal
A well-pruned tree is not only healthier but also more visually appealing. Thoughtful shaping enhances the tree’s natural beauty, creating a polished look that complements your property.
Tips
Things to remember when pruning:
- WHY- Urban trees can get unruly. Without the restraint provided by a forest environment, urban trees tend to grow unnaturally and unsustainably.
- WHEN- Heavy trims should be done in late fall and winter when the plant is dormant. Light trims and safety trims can be implemented year-round.
- ELMS- Edmonton law dictates elms can be pruned between Oct 1 – March 31. Full removals, including the stump, can be carried out year-round.
- HOW- typically, the goal when pruning is to eliminate unwanted growth. This includes; branches that cross or run, water sprouts/suckers, excessive lateral growth, deadwood, unstable limbs.
- ISA industry standards specify that no more than 1/4 of a trees canopy should be removed in one growth season, and leaving the “occasional 1/2″ dead or problem branch” where its impractical to remove, is permissible.
What Pruning Costs In Edmonton
Straight from our rates page:
- Small tree (up to 15 ft): $385 to $500
- Medium tree (15 to 30 ft): $385 to $800
- Large tree (over 30 ft): $800 to $1,500+
- Hedges and bushes: see our bush & hedge pruning page
Even a big mature tree is usually about three hours of work for the crew. The price climbs when there are very large limbs to rig down, when the tree is over the house or the power service, or when it’s been left alone for 20 years and we’re fixing two decades at once. Keeping up with it every few years is cheaper than the catch-up job.
Seniors get 10% off.
When To Prune (And When Not To)
Dormant season is best. Late fall, winter, and early spring, before the leaves come out. The tree has pulled its energy down into the roots, so it loses less from the cuts and seals them up faster when it wakes up. Light trims and safety work can happen any time of year.
Elms have a law. In Alberta, elm pruning is only allowed between October 1 and March 31. That’s to keep the beetle that carries Dutch Elm Disease away from fresh cuts. If someone offers to prune your elm in July, say no. We’ll book it for the window.
Fruit trees (apple, crabapple, pear, plum, cherry) get the most out of a late winter prune. Open the canopy up, take out the water sprouts, and you get bigger fruit instead of more fruit. Apple tree pruning is one of the things we get asked about most.
Cherries, maydays and Schubert chokecherries in Edmonton almost all end up with black knot. It’s a fungus, it spreads, and the only fix is cutting it out well below the growth. Dormant season for that too.
Spruce and pine mostly don’t need it. Evergreens don’t benefit from pruning the way deciduous trees do, so we only trim them where they’re pushing into the house, the fence, the sidewalk, or the neighbour’s yard. If a company wants to “shape” your spruce, ask them why.
Cedars are their own thing. A yearly or every-other-year trim keeps them tight and the right size. Let them go and they get leggy and never quite come back.
What We Actually Cut
The job is to take out what’s working against the tree and leave what’s working for it:
- Deadwood, which attracts pests and eventually falls on something
- Branches that cross and rub (the rubbing opens a wound and the wound rots)
- Water sprouts and suckers, the straight shoots that grow like weeds after a bad cut or a hard winter
- Heavy horizontal limbs over the roof, the driveway, or the power service
- Anything within reach of the house, the garage, or the lines
- Enough interior growth that light and air get through the canopy
We don’t take more than about a quarter of the canopy in one season. More than that and the tree spends the next few years throwing sprouts to recover instead of growing properly. The point is a tree that looks like it was never touched, just healthier and out of the way.
Pruning Questions We Get A Lot
How much does tree pruning cost in Edmonton?
About $385 to $500 for a small tree, up to $800 for a medium tree, and $800 to $1,500+ for a large one. Send us a couple of photos and we’ll give you an exact price, usually the same day.
When is the best time to prune trees in Edmonton?
While the tree is dormant: late fall through early spring. Elms can only legally be pruned October 1 to March 31. Light trimming and hazard removal can be done any time.
Do you prune apple trees?
Yes, lots of them. Late winter is ideal. We open the canopy, remove the water sprouts and crossing branches, and set the tree up for bigger, better fruit.
Can you trim my spruce tree?
We’ll trim spruce and pine where they’re interfering with the house, fence, or a walkway. We don’t “shape” evergreens for the sake of it, because it doesn’t help the tree and it rarely looks right afterward.
How often should a tree be pruned?
Most mature trees every 3 to 5 years. Fruit trees and cedars more like every 1 to 2 years. Young trees benefit from a light structural prune early on, which saves a lot of money later.
Will you top my tree?
No. Topping (cutting the whole crown back to stubs) is the fastest way to turn a healthy tree into a rotten one. We’ll reduce height properly by cutting back to good lateral branches, or talk about removal if the tree is simply too big for the spot.
What happens to the branches?
Everything gets chipped on site and hauled away. The yard is raked and blown off before the crew leaves.
Do I need to be home?
No. Unlocked gate and a quick note on which trees, and the crew can do the work while you’re out.
Not sure if your tree needs a prune or a removal? Text a photo to (780) 266-1919 and we’ll tell you straight.
Tree service across the Edmonton areaEdmonton · St. Albert · Sherwood Park · Spruce Grove · Stony Plain · Leduc · Beaumont · Fort Saskatchewan
Plus Sturgeon County, Parkland County, Strathcona County, Leduc County, Devon, Nisku, Gibbons, Redwater and Thorhild.
Plus Sturgeon County, Parkland County, Strathcona County, Leduc County, Devon, Nisku, Gibbons, Redwater and Thorhild.