City of Lake Forest, IL

In the Community-Wide Survey, some residents asked questions about the City's tree trimming and pruning efforts.

Why is the City conducting tree trimming and pruning?
Tree pruning is an essential component of maintaining a healthy urban forest. Pruning removes dead and competing branches to encourage healthy new growth and maturation. The process maximizes a tree's value and supports numerous environmental and community benefits.

The City's parkway pruning is different from what you see on public and private property from ComEd's trimming crews. ComEd crews' specifications for pruning are to maintain a certain distance from the power lines to minimize power outages and typically don’t consider aesthetics. City crews and contractors are focused on supporting the proper characteristics of the tree by removing dead, dying, diseased, and interfering branches while maintaining a sixteen-foot clearance over the road and balancing the tree canopy to maintain the proper sidewalk clearance. 

City Forestry and Contractual Tree Trimming
City Forestry crews and contractors have begun pruning trees on the parkways and will continue through the winter months. The City has close to 20,000 parkway trees and has recently developed an eight-year program to help catch up on some needed maintenance to those trees. This year, in-house Forestry and contractual crews will concentrate on pruning trees in Zone 2 and a portion of Zone 7. See map below for locations.

While City crews prune trees on parkways and in public areas throughout the winter, the City uses a contractor to do additional pruning in order to accomplish more during the time of year when it's best to prune trees. 

What to expect:

• Contractor: Advanced Tree Care
• Pruning specifications:  Standard Class 2 – Remove all dead, dying, diseased, interfering branches, located in the canopy that are one (1) inch in diameter or greater. Raise the canopy to a minimum of sixteen feet above the road and eight feet over the sidewalk. Pruning shall be conducted in a manner that maintains the crown shape and symmetry typical of the species being pruned.

If you have any questions, please contact the Forestry Section at (847) 810-3564.

Want to learn more about the trees in our urban forest? Check out Forestry's Interactive Tree Map to identify tree species in parkways and public areas.

ComEd Tree Trimming and Vegetation Management
Trees and branches that interfere with power lines can create safety hazards and cause power outages. Preventative tree maintenance helps avoid power outages.

• Within the next 3 months, ComEd will trim trees, branches and vines that interfere or have the potential to interfere with power lines.
• In some cases, tree removal may be required. The remaining tree stumps are treated with an approved herbicide to prevent future regrowth. Herbicide will be applied by state-licensed applicators.
• All work is performed by trained, qualified arborists.

For more information, visit: ComEd.com/Trees or call us at 800-Edison-1 (800-334-7661).