Village’s cyclical tree pruning program started in November, will continue through April
Not many would describe the weather this week as ideal conditions for working outside. But for John Finnell and the village’s forestry employees, it is.
“This weather right here, in the mid-20s with no snow, is fantastic,” said Finnell, superintendent of parks and forestry. “Our equipment still works well in the 20s and the ground is frozen, so we’re not doing a lot of damage to the turf.
“This is perfect weather for pruning,” he said.
Village crews and contract workers are in the midst of the village’s annual cyclical parkway tree pruning, which began in November and will continue through April. This year crews will prune more than 1,000 trees in an area bordered by Lincoln Street on the west, County Line Road on the east, the railroad tracks on the north and 55th Street. Crews in November and December already pruned 414 trees in the area.
Trees in village parkways are pruned every five years to help enhance their condition and shape, reduce storm-related damage and prevent interference with power lines and the movement of motorists and pedestrians.
It might seem counterintuitive, but winter is the best time to prune trees, Finnell explained. Trees are not expending energy to produce leaves or fight insects in the winter.
“There’s less stress on the tree,” Finnell said. “When we create wounds by pruning, the tree can respond to those wounds in the spring and quickly overgrow them.”
Pruning in winter does require a degree of skill.
“How can you figure out what’s dead when there are not leaves on it?” he posed. “That’s why we’re trained.”
The village has four arborists on staff — including Finnell — who have obtained certification from the International Society of Arboriculture. They also are trained to use village equipment.
“We have an aerial bucket truck. Our working height on that truck is 55 feet,” Finnell said. “We definitely have training involved in that.”
In addition to the cyclical tree pruning, the village will schedule individual trees for request pruning, crisis pruning, task pruning or species pruning.
“Request pruning is scheduled based on reasonable resident requests. Crisis pruning is the removal of hazards or emergencies such as hanging limbs. Task pruning is for a particular purpose, such as removing branches infested with a pest or providing adequate height clearance along a street. Species pruning involves the grouping of all trees within a species for similar treatment if needed,” Finnell wrote in an email.
Finnell and his crew take pride in maintaining almost 15,000 village-owned trees.
“Hinsdale has been a Tree City USA for 33 years,” Finnell noted. “We have a heritage of maintaining our green spaces, our trees, that goes back to the ’50s.
“I think that’s one of the things that makes Hinsdale a unique place to call home.”
