The Town of Okotoks is well underway with their tree trimming operations for the spring.

You may think the trimming has started earlier than usual thanks to the warm weather but Urban Forester Gordon White says they can at just about anytime as pruning and trimming is a constant maintenance process.

"Tree pruning can be pretty much 365 days a year," he says. "There are some species like Elm trees that you can't prune during the pruning ban which is on now and then our maple and birch trees we try to prune them in the summer time when they're in full leaf so they don't bleed."

Residents might also be starting to prune when they get a chance but if you have signs of black knot or other diseases on trees, White says you shouldn't just throw the branches in the garbage.

"If you take it out to the landfill and put it in the fill pile as supposed to the wood pile then it will get buried and won't get spread around but all other branches if you chip them up it can make good mulch."

White says if you see tree trimmers on the streets and boulevards of roadways in town, please be aware of where they're working so they have a safe place to to quickly and safely take care of the trees.

As we're pruning trees on the streets and there's Town workers out and about we'd like motorists to pay attention to that and follow our speed limit signs and hopefully we're interfering with the flow of traffic too much."

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