How Ice Can Damage Your Trees

​When folks think about what can damage trees, rain and heavy winds might come to mind. Or even some type of disease or pest. But many people don’t think about how ice can damage trees. The fact of the matter is ice damage trees are quite hazardous.

While icicles are nice to look at, constant ice could be harmful to your trees. You get an ample amount of ice on your trees both when it snows, and the temps drop below freezing.

Examining Your Trees
Before you examine your trees, you must be aware of some safety concerns. First, if your tree is near power lines, do not touch it. You don’t want to be part of an accident that involves water and electricity. Contact a certified arborist to see if your tree can be pruned back to get rid of dangerous branches.

Sometimes, an ice-damaged tree can’t be repaired and has to be removed by a professional. It’s crucial to remember that broken branches cannot be repaired, so they need to be removed too.

It’s best to trim them back to the next adjoining branch. You should never leave a branch as a stub. This promotes decay and rot. If you do this, the tree might die, leaving all the work you did as a waste of time.

Removing a Tree
If you have to remove a tree, think about swapping it with a more durable type like an oak, bald cypress, or crape myrtle. If you just replace the tree with the same one, then you could run into the same problem again. 
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Protecting Your Tree
There are things you can do to protect your trees if an ice storm is coming your way. Wrap small trees with carpet or strong cloth. Once spring comes, you have to take off the wrapping, so you do not hinder any growth.

You can also request tree bracing and tree cabling, which entails installing steel cables in the trees to lessen the stress created by heavy snow and high winds. This isn’t a DIY job. Get in touch with Syracuse Tree Service to schedule the work.

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