Street Pruning is Easier than You Think!
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The City of Sugar Land recently implemented a new street tree pruning ordinance. Trees that overhang residential streets must have a 12-foot clearance over the street and an 8-foot clearance over the sidewalk. Trees that overhang major streets must have a 14-foot clearance over the street and an 8-foot clearance over the sidewalk. First Colony Community Association’s (FCCA) guidelines are now the same as those of the City. Trees are an important benefit to our community. In addition to their beauty, trees help lower utility costs in the summer. They reduce pollution as leaves absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Trees increase property value. In fact, mature, healthy trees can increase a property’s value as much as 25 percent!
Keeping our street trees pruned is crucial for public safety as well as for the safety of the trees. Clearance is essential for visibility of signs and signals and for accessibility of emergency vehicles. You want your valuable trees pruned with pruning tools, not by tall vehicles that break limbs causing severe or fatal damage to the tree.
Pruning street trees is easier than a lot of people realize. The terminology for the type of pruning required is crown cleaning and crown raising.
Crown cleaning is cleaning out suckers and broken, diseased, or overlapping limbs. This does not involve thinning out a lot of the interior of the tree. The heavy thinning out of interior branches is not necessary and is not healthy for trees. Crown raising is the part where you raise the canopy of the tree to the required height of 12 feet over your street and 8 feet over your sidewalk, so all you need to do is remove the lower limbs that are below that height. That’s it. You’re done!
If you would like to see a video on tree pruning, click here. FCCA’s landscape manager, who is a Certified Arborist, will also be glad to come to your neighborhood gathering for a tree- trimming demonstration. Please contact your neighborhood representative if you are interested.
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