Waiting until the leaves drop in fall is a rule of thumb for pruning shade trees, mainly because you can see bare limbs better, and the job is less “messy” without leaves attached to the cut branches.

The leaves are down, winter is upon us, and that means it’s prime time for pruning oak trees, which can be infected by the oak wilt fungus if they’re pruned during the high-risk period mid-March ...

The winter months are the ideal time to prune oak trees in Michigan if you don’t want to put them at high risk for oak wilt. Oak wilt is a fungal disease that can weaken white oaks and kill red oak ...