





Fall is the perfect time to prepare your trees for the harsh winter ahead. By following a fall tree care checklist, you can ensure your trees stay healthy and strong throughout the cold months in the greater Truckee-Tahoe region.
Key Takeaways
- Pruning dead or weak branches reduces the risk of property damage and injury during winter storms.
- Water your trees in the fall before the ground freezes to ensure they stay hydrated through the colder months.
- Refresh the mulch around your tree, ensuring it’s applied two to four inches deep and kept away from the trunk to prevent rot.
- Protect young trees with thin bark by wrapping them to guard against frost cracks and sunscald.
- Fall is an ideal time to plant new trees, but always consider defensible space to protect both your trees and your property.
6 Items to Prepare Your Trees for Winter in the Greater Truckee-Tahoe Region
Fall is a critical time for trees in the greater Truckee-Tahoe area. Proper winter preparation ensures your trees enter dormancy strong and healthy. Your fall tree care checklist should include tasks like light pruning, mulching, and more to help your trees thrive through the colder months.
1. Prune Weak or Dead Branches
While major pruning is best saved for winter, fall pruning plays an important role in preparing your trees for the colder months. That’s because massive snowstorms are quite common in the Truckee-Tahoe region. Heavy snow from these storms can weigh down branches, causing them to snap and fall, potentially damaging property or causing injury. Additionally, strong winds during snowstorms can tear branches from trees, sending them flying and creating further risks to both people and structures.
Fall pruning should be light and focus on removing dead, diseased, or weak branches—those that pose a risk to your family and property during winter.
WARNING: Pruning will make your tree safer, but it cannot remove all risks. Always use caution around a tree, especially in severe weather.
2. Water Your Trees Before the Ground Freezes
In dry fall conditions, providing supplemental water can be crucial for your trees. While not always necessary, it’s important to ensure your trees are hydrated before the ground freezes.
To check if your trees need water, dig a small hole about 6 inches deep with a screwdriver or soil probe and feel the soil. If it’s cool and moist, your trees are well-hydrated. If the soil is dry, it’s time to water.
When watering, use a hose with a soaker nozzle to evenly saturate the soil around the tree, avoiding wetting the trunk.
3. Apply a Fresh Layer of Mulch Around Your Trees
Mulching around your tree’s base provides numerous benefits, particularly in the fall. As the weather cools, mulch acts as an insulating layer that helps retain warmth in the soil, protecting your tree’s roots from freezing temperatures.
When applying mulch, aim for a depth of two to four inches, using an organic material such as wood chips. However, it’s important to avoid piling mulch directly around the tree’s root collar—the area where the trunk meets the roots. Too much mulch in this spot can create a moist environment that promotes rot and decay. If you find mulch covering the root collar, carefully remove it to expose the area and help prevent potential damage to the tree’s health.
4. Fertilize Your Trees if Necessary
Fall is one of the best times to fertilize your trees. Some tips for fall fertilization include:
- Only fertilize trees when a soil test indicates a nutrient deficiency.
- Pick a fertilizer that targets the specific deficiency your soil has.
- Avoid high-nitrogen fertilizers that stimulate too much growth in the fall.
- Use slow-release fertilizers to provide nutrients throughout the winter.
5. Wrap Trees to Protect from Cold
Tree wraps can help protect your trees in the winter. We usually recommend wrapping young trees or those with thin bark. The reason we suggest wrapping your trees is to prevent two things:
- Frost Cracks: Frost cracks occur when temperature fluctuations cause stress on a tree’s bark. During the day, warmer temperatures cause the tree’s cells to expand, but as temperatures drop at night, the bark cools rapidly while the inner cells remain warm. This contrast in temperatures creates pressure, leading to the formation of frost cracks. These frost cracks are generally not harmful to the overall health of the tree but they can act as an entry point for insects and diseases.
- Sunscald: Sunscald happens when warm, sunny winter days cause one side of a tree to heat up, awakening the tree’s cells from dormancy. As temperatures drop at night, the cells freeze, causing them to burst and die. This results in a distinct, jagged wound on the tree’s bark. Sunscald typically affects the south or southwestern side of the tree, where it is exposed to the most sunlight during the day.

Be careful when planting new trees and shrubs that they won’t interfere with defensible space requirements.
6. Plant New Trees in the Fall
It may seem like a harmful idea to plant a tree right before winter hits. After all, winter is supposed to be a stressful time for trees, right? However, fall is actually one of the best times to plant trees in the greater Truckee-Tahoe region.
Fall planting gives a tree time to establish itself before the heat of summer arrives. Despite a tree being in dormancy, its roots continue to expand. Fall planting allows a tree’s roots to spread further before its first summer. Why is that important? An expansive root system helps a tree find water and nutrients and avoid summer heat stress.
WARNING: Planting trees has various environmental benefits. However, in our region, we must be conscious of the risk they carry in spreading wildfire. Always be mindful of defensible space when planting a new tree.
Arbor Solutions Can Help with Your Fall Tree Care Checklist
Don’t neglect your trees this fall. Completing the items on our fall tree care checklist can help prepare your trees for the upcoming winter. By pruning out deadwood, refreshing your mulch, and wrapping your trees, you’ll reduce stress as they head into dormancy.
The team at Arbor Solutions is ready to help you with all your fall tree care needs. Call us at 530-580-8383 or request an estimate online today.

Cat Piercy supports the Arbor Solutions team as an administrative manager. With over 20 years of experience in the service industry, Cat helps Arbor Solutions provide high-quality tree care throughout the greater Truckee-Tahoe region.



We publish monthly articles detailing tree care in the greater Truckee-Tahoe region. If you have a question about maintaining your trees, we may have already answered it on our Tree Care Blog.