Every hurricane season, the same kinds of trees end up on Lowcountry roofs: pines with a lean that has been slowly getting worse, oaks with a dead limb nobody looked at, and trees whose crowns were so dense that wind had nothing to pass through. The good news is that most of these are visible months ahead if you know what to look for.
Walk your yard and look up. Dead limbs show as bare, grey wood with no leaves in summer. Cracks where two big trunks meet, mushrooms at the base, and soil that heaves up on one side of a leaning tree are all signs that something has changed underground. Hanging limbs caught in the canopy, called hangers, should come down before wind brings them down for you.
A pre-season trim is not about cutting a tree back hard. It's about removing deadwood, taking weight off long limbs over the house, and thinning the crown so wind passes through instead of pushing. A properly thinned tree is far more likely to come through a storm whole than one that has been topped, because topping produces weak regrowth that breaks easily.
Some trees are better removed than trimmed: a pine with a severe lean toward the house, a hollow water oak, or a tree that's already dead. Removing those in calm weather, on your schedule, costs far less than an emergency removal after the storm, when every crew in the county is booked.
If you're not sure about a tree, ask for a walk-through. We'll tell you plainly which trees need work, which can wait, and which are fine, and give you a written price either way.