In this Southside Pride article, Jake MacDougall from Davey's South Minneapolis office shares pruning and assessment tips to help keep your trees healthy this spring. 

Posted: April 14, 2025

As spring slowly arrives in the North, an arborist’s fancy turns to thoughts of trees. It’s true for Jake MacDougall, who works for Davey Tree Expert Company — at 145 years, the oldest tree company in the country. Davey Tree has offices in every state except of Alaska.

In the Twin Cities, the company has several locations and MacDougall says tree owners here need to know what to do to keep their trees in the best of health.
“Spring is the end of the dormant season. While pruning all summer is fine, right now in the spring, for most trees it’s a perfect time for pruning, before the trees leaf out,” he said. “If a tree needs to shed a branch, we prune them now so that the tree can focus on the healthy part of the tree.”

“At this time of year, we focus on the diagnostic and assess for any treatment trees need in the growing season. We look for insect damage from mites and scale insects, particularly in ornamental trees such as crab apples and magnolias.”


To read more spring tree care advice, click here. 

For more information, contact the South Minneapolis Davey office. 

The Davey Tree Expert Company, headquartered in Kent, Ohio, provides research-driven tree services, grounds maintenance and environmental and utility infrastructure consulting for residential, utility, commercial and environmental partners in the U.S. and Canada. As one of the top ten largest employee-owned companies in the U.S., Davey's 12,000 employees have been dedicated to creating and delivering sustainable solutions since 1880. Apply today to join the Davey legacy, and learn about how we're growing with our new SEED Campus

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