Arizona monsoon season… What a time of year! On the one hand an Arizona resident wants to be grateful because temperatures decrease by a degree or two while we are dealing with triple digits and our desert homes finally get rain! But on the other hand, trees drop like flies, or might I say fall over like Humpty Dumpty, or even better snap like a wishbone. Promise that’s the last one… The key to keeping trees upright and whole is properly pruning them in preparation for the monsoon season.
Monsoon season begins mid-June and runs until about the end of September. The eye of the monsoon season is usually between the middle of July and the middle of August. With the monsoon season comes high winds, winds that bring risk to overgrown and top-heavy trees. When trees have too much weight on the ends of their branches, they have not been pruned well and sadly sometimes not at all. In preparation for monsoon season, in the best practice of being proactive instead of reactive, trees should be pruned in May and June. Most of the trees growing in Arizona and that have adapted to our desert grow the most between May and July.
It is a common thought that just thinning out a tree will help because it will make it possible for wind to pass more readily through it. But in addition to thinning out the tree, one should also reduce the canopy’s size.
Gear up for that monsoon season! Let’s be proactive and plan for proper pruning to begin in May. Trees take care of us and help to clean the air that we breathe. So let’s make sure they stay healthy and upright!