Storm readiness, done before the watch is posted
The one tree that decides how a storm goes is usually the one nobody looked at until it came down. A free walk-through finds it while there is still time to act — the specific work this crew is built around, not a package bolted onto mowing.
- Window
- August – October
- Looks at
- Canopy, fronds, drainage, debris
- Walk-through
- Free, no obligation
What a pre‑storm walk‑through checks
Four things, looked at while we are already on your property. None of them cost anything to point out, and three of the four are cheap to fix before a season rather than expensive to clean up after one.
Canopy over the roofline
Palm heads that sit above a roof, a lanai or a driveway are the first thing to come down in a named storm. They get cut back before the season, not after — and anything hanging over the house that is not ours to cut, you hear about on the walk-through while there is still time to deal with it.
Dead fronds and hanging weight
A palm carrying a skirt of dead fronds is throwing debris at your windows at 70 mph. Clearing it is the cheapest storm work there is.
Where the water goes
Compacted sandy soil, a broken sprinkler head and a bed that pools after every afternoon storm all show up in the same walk-through — and all three are fixable.
Debris already on the ground
Leaf litter and downed limbs left in beds smother turf and give the next storm more to throw around. Clean-up is where most yards start.
There is no such thing as a hurricane cut
Stripping a palm back to a few upright fronds does not reduce its wind resistance. UF/IFAS is clear on this: green fronds are how a palm feeds itself, and cutting them off thins the trunk over time, leaves the growing point exposed, andincreases the risk of storm damage rather than lowering it.
The palm work that genuinely helps before a storm is narrower than the cut some crews sell: fronds that are already dead or brown, plus any loose fronds, seed pods or coconuts that could come down in high wind. Green fronds stay on the tree.
How palm trimming worksThe same palm reads two ways
On a home
A risk you carry yourself
An overloaded palm above the walk is your call and your damage. The walk-through tells you which one it is and what it costs to deal with now — mowing, a bed refresh, or the palm that has been worrying you since last September.
On a managed property
A liability line, not a lawn-care one
The same palm over a tenant, a resident's car or a common path turns a maintenance item into a claim the association or the owner is on the hook for. That is the case we make on every commercial walk-through.
Commercial serviceThe window is August into October
Florida's exposure runs highest from August into October, and the Atlantic season peaks around September 10. In August, routine summer maintenance and hurricane prep are the same month's work — which is why the year on this site double-counts it.
The prep has to be finished before a watch is posted, not during one. Once a storm is inbound, anything trimmed is just more loose material in the yard and crews are off the roads. The walk-through belongs in the calm.
The landscaping yearBefore the season
Storm prep, the questions that come up
Should palm trees get a "hurricane cut" before storm season?
No. There is no such thing as a hurricane cut. UF/IFAS is clear that stripping a palm back to a few upright fronds does not reduce wind resistance and actively harms the tree — green fronds are how a palm feeds itself, and over-pruning thins the trunk and leaves the growing point exposed. What genuinely helps before a storm is taking off the fronds that are already dead or brown, plus any loose fronds, seed pods or coconuts that could come down in high wind. That is the palm work worth doing.
When does storm prep need to happen?
The Atlantic season runs highest from August into October and peaks around September 10. The work — dead fronds off the palms, overgrowth cut back off the house, the yard cleared of loose material — has to be finished before a watch is posted. Once one is up, the window for it has already closed.
What is the point of a walk-through if a storm is not forecast yet?
That is exactly when it is worth doing. Trimming and clean-up stop being useful once a storm is inbound — anything cut then is just more loose material in the yard, and crews are off the roads before the wind arrives. The walk-through belongs in the calm, not in the 48 hours before landfall.
Do you remove whole trees or large dangerous limbs?
Not full tree removals — that is licensed tree-crew work. What we do is flag anything over the house, a carport or a common path that needs a tree crew, on the walk-through, so you can line it up while there is still time to schedule it rather than after a watch is posted.
Have us walk the property before the next storm watch.
Tell us the address and what has been on your mind — the palm over the lanai, a bed that floods, or just wanting a second read before Longwood's next season. We come look, and the estimate costs nothing.
Prepared by Lawncare 4U — Longwood, FL