Not too late to trim trees as Monsoon storms roll in
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — It’s been a wild week across Arizona, with heavy wind and rain causing a lot of damage.
And there’s more to come.
A lot of homeowners are now scrambling to trim back their trees before the next storm rolls in.
Mark Ryan is President of the Idylwild Community in Central Phoenix, which has a big park surrounded by many big trees.
He says that homeowners here realized a long time ago the importance of cutting their trees every summer.
“These are old trees, about 100 years old,” said Ryan. “Just the extra weight that’s on these trees, it’s been accumulating over the years, it blows large section of trees off and you have a huge disaster to clean up.”
It is not uncommon to see big trees crashing down onto homes, cars and other personal property during the Monsoon, but many of these catastrophes could have been prevented if homeowners had taken some simple precautions.
Rob Dillingham with Jason’s Tree Service said the best time to trim back and thin out your trees is in May or June, but there’s still time to get someone out to reduce the risk of having significant storm damage.
“If we get another storm next week, if you haven’t done anything, then you’ll probably be in pretty bad shape, where you could have a broken limb or broken section,” said Dillingham. “Trying to fix the tree after the fact will be extremely expensive. You are better off doing it now.”
The cost to trim and thin out large trees is not inexpensive, running anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand.
But it’s still cheaper than the cost of fixing the damage from one of the storms, said Dillingham.
Ryan and his neighbors say they’ll have a lot more peace of mind for the rest of the summer.
“It’s better to get it done ahead of time,” said Ryan.
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