Tree on your house, blocking the driveway, or into power lines? Call 612-532-9996 now. · Live answering · Same-day emergency response
Tree on your house, blocking the driveway, or into power lines? Call 612-532-9996 now. · Live answering · Same-day emergency response
Home › Tree Services › Tree Trimming and Tree Pruning
ISA Certified Arborists · Serving the Twin Cities since 2006
Topping is the fastest way to ruin a healthy tree, and it is still the most requested cut in Minnesota. We will explain what it does, show you what we would do instead, and if your tree does not need pruning this year we will tell you that too.
4.8 stars across 133 Google reviews. Licensed, insured, and a TCIA member.
Send a photo of the tree. We’ll tell you straight, even if the answer is “leave it alone this year.”
ISA Certified Arborist · TCIA Member · MN Tree Care Registry #20190969 · ★ 4.8 stars across 133 Google reviews · Licensed and insured · Serving the Twin Cities since 2006
Topping is cutting a tree back to stubs, removing the crown and leaving bare limbs. It is popular because it looks decisive and it is cheap to sell. It is also the single most damaging thing you can do to a mature tree.
Here is what actually happens. The tree loses the leaves it feeds itself with, so it panics and throws out water sprouts, dozens of fast, weak shoots from the cut ends. Those shoots are attached to the surface of the wound instead of anchored in the wood, so within a few years you have a taller, denser, weaker tree than the one you started with. The open stubs cannot seal, so decay walks down into the trunk. And you will be paying someone to cut it again in three years, and again after that.
A homeowner who tops a healthy silver maple usually spends more over ten years than the removal would have cost, and ends up removing it anyway.
So when you call us and ask us to take the top out of a tree, we are going to say no, and then we are going to show you where we would cut instead. Sometimes that is a proper reduction back to a lateral branch that can take over as the new leader. Sometimes it is a thinning cut to let wind through the crown. Sometimes the honest answer is that the tree is too far gone and you are better served by tree removal than by pruning it, and we will say that as well. And sometimes the tree simply does not need anything this year.
“Instead of trimming all of our trees, which he had originally quoted, he encouraged us to wait until the fall.”
Clara Nydam
That is a quote we wrote, and then talked ourselves out of. If your trees are healthy and the timing is wrong, the right answer is to wait, and waiting costs you nothing. If a tree is genuinely stressed, that is a job for tree health care, not a saw.
Good pruning is subtractive and conservative. A trained arborist takes the least wood that achieves the goal, and every cut is made at a specific place for a specific reason. Here is the whole list.
The first pass on almost every tree, and often the only pass a healthy tree needs. Dead wood is where decay and insects get in, and it is what falls in a storm.
Two branches grinding against each other wear through the bark and open a wound that never closes. One of them comes out, and it is the one with the worse attachment.
Two stems of equal size growing from the same point form a narrow V with bark trapped inside it. That is the joint that splits in a wind event. Caught early, it is one small cut.
Limbs over a roof drop debris into the gutters and give squirrels a bridge. Clearance work is real pruning, done to the branch collar, not a hedge trim on a tall stick.
Notice what is not on that list: healthy interior growth, the top of the tree, and anything removed to make the crown look tidier. A tree that has been properly pruned should not look like it has been pruned.
Gabe is an ISA Certified Arborist, and the pruning plan is made by someone qualified to make it. That is the difference between pruning and cutting.
Every cut lands at the collar so the tree can seal it. No flush cuts, no stubs. This is the entire difference between a wound that closes and a wound that rots.
Oak wilt and Dutch elm move on tools and on fresh wounds. Sanitising between trees is not optional in Minnesota.
Mats or plywood under the drop zone and the equipment, so the lawn you are paying to keep looking good survives the visit.
Brush chipped and taken. Chips left only if you want them.
“They raked up all the debris and even took leaf blowers to fluff up the grass. Seriously!” Jeff Matthies
For most trees, yes, and for some of them right now is the ideal time rather than a compromise. Two species are the real exceptions, and they are the reason it is worth asking an arborist rather than guessing. Here is the honest answer for each.
Yes, and it should not wait
Immediately, whatever the month or the species
A broken limb is a hazard and an open wound already, so the calendar does not apply. If it is over a roof, a drive or a walkway, that is emergency tree work.
Yes
Late spring and early summer, once the leaves are fully out
University of Minnesota Extension recommends pruning these after the leaves are fully expanded. The heavy sap bleeding people worry about happens in late winter, it is cosmetic, and it does not harm the tree. We take no more than a quarter of the live foliage in one visit.
Yes
Any time through the middle of summer
Extension puts arborvitae and juniper in the “prune any time through midsummer” group. If a screen has outgrown a property line or a driveway sightline, there is no reason to wait.
Yes, if they have finished flowering
Immediately after the blooms drop
These set next year’s flower buds within weeks of finishing. Prune them in winter, which is when most people think about pruning, and you cut off next spring’s flowers. This is the one job where waiting is the mistake.
Yes
Late winter for major structural work, any month for the rest
Linden, hackberry, honeylocust, ash and the rest can be pruned in any season. Dormant is easier for reading structure on a big reduction. Summer has its own advantage: dead wood is unmistakable when everything alive is in leaf.
Usually
Late winter for spruce and fir; pines before the new needles harden off
Conifers are the one group where the ideal window is genuinely narrow, but clearance and deadwood work is fine year round.
Dead wood and genuine hazards only
The dormant season. Roughly November through March.
Oak wilt. The Minnesota DNR reissues “don’t prune oaks April through July” every spring, most recently 6 April 2026, because that is when the beetles carrying the fungus are drawn to fresh wounds. University of Minnesota Extension is more cautious still and says do not prune oaks April to October. An infected red oak can die in a single season. If a limb genuinely has to come off inside that window, the DNR’s own guidance is to seal the cut immediately, because a fresh wound stays attractive to the beetles for about five days. That is exactly what we do, and it is the only oak work we will take in the summer.
Dead wood and genuine hazards only
November through February
Dutch elm disease, the same beetle-to-fresh-wound mechanism. University of Minnesota Extension is blunt about it: elms should only be pruned when they are dormant, November through February. When we do take hazard wood off an elm, it leaves the property rather than sitting in a pile, because the beetle breeds in recently dead bark.
If you call us in June about an oak, we will book you for November and tell you why, and that is a job we are turning down in our busiest month. If you call us in June about the maple over your driveway, that is the right time to be calling.
An arborist walks the property, looks at every tree you are asking about, and tells you what each one actually needs. Sometimes the answer is nothing.
Which trees, which cuts, what it costs, and when we can do it. If the right time is five months away, the estimate says so.
Drop zones set, mats down where they are needed, saws sanitised between trees. Climbers or the lift, depending on access.
Brush chipped and hauled, the lawn blown clean, and a walk-through so you can see every cut before we leave.
Two trees that look the same from the street can be quoted very differently, and that is the thing homeowners find hardest to trust. Here is exactly what changes the number.
A 25-foot ornamental and a 70-foot silver maple are different jobs with different gear. Species matters too, because some woods are heavier and some crowns are far denser than they look.
A front-yard tree we can reach with the lift is the cheapest scenario there is. A backyard tree behind a fence, over a pool, or with no gate wide enough for equipment has to be climbed and rigged down piece by piece, and that is time.
A limb over an open lawn drops. The same limb over a roof, a fence, a greenhouse or a power line has to be roped and lowered, and that can double the hours on one branch.
A deadwood pass on a healthy tree is a fraction of a full structural prune on a neglected one. Trees pruned on a cycle get cheaper over time.
Doing six trees in one visit costs meaningfully less per tree than doing one, because the setup and the haul are shared.
Chipped and hauled is standard. Wood cut to length and stacked for you, or chips left for your beds, changes the number in either direction.
We do publish real numbers where we have them. The removal ranges on our tree removal page are Gabe’s actual figures, not marketing ranges. We have not published pruning ranges because pruning varies more per job than removal does, and a range wide enough to be honest would not help you. What we will do is give you a firm number in writing before anyone starts.
“Instead of trimming all of our trees, which he had originally quoted, he encouraged us to wait until the fall.”
Clara Nydam
“Having a certified arborist matters; this is not a fly-by-night guy with undeserved self-confidence, ‘sure, we have a chain saw.’ This might not be the cheapest but quality matters.”
Katie Trotzky
“They left our yard in better condition than it was before the project started.”
MIKE Anderson
4.8 stars across 133 Google reviews
For most trees, any month, and the popular answer of “always wait for winter” is wrong often enough to cost people money. University of Minnesota Extension recommends pruning maple, birch and walnut after the leaves are fully out in late spring or early summer. Arborvitae and juniper can be pruned any time through midsummer. Lilac, crabapple and other spring bloomers have to be pruned right after they flower, because pruning them in winter removes next spring’s flowers.
Late winter is genuinely best for major structural work on a large hardwood, because the structure is readable with the leaves off.
The two real exceptions are oak and elm. The Minnesota DNR says do not prune oaks April through July, and Extension is more cautious still at April to October. Extension says elms should only be pruned November through February. Both restrictions exist because beetles carrying oak wilt and Dutch elm disease are drawn to fresh cuts.
Broken or hanging limbs are the exception to all of it, on any species, and should be dealt with immediately.
Less often than most people think. A young tree benefits from structural pruning every 2 to 3 years, which is cheap and prevents expensive problems later. A healthy mature tree often needs nothing more than a deadwood pass every 3 to 5 years. If a company tells you every tree needs annual trimming, they are selling a subscription, not arboriculture.
Topping cuts a tree back to stubs and removes its crown. The tree responds by throwing out dozens of weak, fast shoots attached to the surface of the wound rather than anchored in wood, so it grows back taller, denser and structurally weaker. The open stubs cannot seal, so decay moves into the trunk. It is more dangerous than the problem it was meant to solve, and we will not do it.
This is the request that usually comes in as “top it.” There is a real technique called crown reduction, where the height comes down by cutting back to a lateral branch big enough to take over as the new leader. It is slower and more skilled than topping and it does not damage the tree. It also has limits: not every tree can be meaningfully reduced, and if yours cannot, we will tell you that rather than top it.
In Minnesota, no. Anyone with a saw can sell tree trimming, which is exactly why the standard varies so much. Urban Tree is ISA Certified, a TCIA member, and on the Minnesota Tree Care Registry as licence #20190969. Ask whoever you hire for all three.
It depends on size, access, what is underneath the tree, and how much is actually coming out. A deadwood pass on a healthy front-yard tree is a fraction of a structural prune on a neglected backyard one. We do not publish pruning ranges because they would have to be so wide to be honest that they would not help you. You get a firm number in writing before anyone starts.
Good pruning does not. Every cut is a wound, so a trained arborist takes the least wood that achieves the goal and puts every cut where the tree can seal it. Bad pruning absolutely does hurt a tree, and topping is the clearest example. The damage is usually invisible for two or three years, which is why it keeps being sold.
If a tree is stressed, thinning or dropping limbs, the answer is diagnosis, not a saw.
When a tree really is finished, we will say so, and our removal pricing is published.
For big trees in tight backyards, a crane is usually the cheaper option, not the expensive one.
That is the call we would rather get. Send a photo, or have us walk the property, and we will tell you what each tree actually needs this year. Sometimes that answer is nothing, and we will say so.
Ask your neighbour, then call.
