Pruning Honey Locust Tree

Honey locust trees are beautiful, fast-growing, and covered in thorns that will go straight through a standard work glove. (The botanical term for that feature is “armed.” My term for it, after fifteen years of this work, is “reason to wear better gloves.”)

The short answer on timing: prune honey locust in late winter while it’s dormant — late February through mid-March in the Fraser Valley. Dead or diseased branches can come out any time of year without waiting for dormancy.

When to prune a honey locust tree

Honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) is deciduous — it drops its leaves in fall and sits dormant through winter. That’s when you prune it. Late February through mid-March in the Fraser Valley is the window. The tree has enough stored energy to seal the cuts before spring growth kicks in, and without leaves blocking your view, you can actually see the structure you’re working on.

Dead branches follow different rules. Dead, diseased, or damaged wood can come out any time of year. If you spot it in September, remove it in September. Waiting for dormancy on dead wood just gives rot and insects more time to travel into healthy tissue.

The one season to avoid for live pruning is late spring to early summer, when honey locust is actively flushing. Heavy cuts during active growth stress the tree and invite pests at the wound site. You’ll also hit peak sap pressure, and cleanup gets considerably messier.

The ISA (International Society of Arboriculture) recommends pruning most deciduous trees in late dormancy for this reason — the wound response is faster, and the tree is already primed to push resources to the cut site once spring arrives.

Pruning young honey locust trees vs. mature ones

A young honey locust (under five years) needs structural pruning. Pick a dominant leader and remove competing branches that will grow into crossing problems later. The goal is a clear central trunk with well-spaced lateral branches. Remove any branches where bark is growing tightly together where two limbs meet — that’s a bark inclusion, and it’s a future failure point, particularly in the windstorms we get October through March in Surrey.

A mature honey locust needs less structural work and more maintenance pruning: dead, diseased, or rubbing branches come out; the canopy gets thinned slightly for light penetration; anything growing toward fence lines, structures, or power proximity gets managed. Crown thinning for a mature tree — removing 10–20% of canopy — is roughly a once-every-three-to-five-year job.

A few years back, a homeowner called us about a honey locust he’d tried to prune himself. Removed too much at once, left stubs instead of clean collar cuts, ended up with four competing leaders where one should have been. Came back two years later looking considerably worse — bark inclusions forming at every fork, deadwood spreading through the canopy. We crown-reduced it properly ($800) to manage the competing growth. Would’ve been a $350 job if he’d called the first time.

What to cut: dead, diseased, and crossing branches

Four categories of branches to remove, every time:

Dead branches— no bark at all, or bark that cracks and lifts when you scratch it. A dead branch on a honey locust won’t recover. It’ll dry out, lose bark, and eventually become a projectile. Cut at the branch collar — the swollen area where the branch meets the trunk or a parent branch.

Diseased or damaged branches— brown, soft, or discoloured wood that doesn’t match the surrounding tree. Cut back to clean wood, and sterilise your saw blade between cuts with a 10% bleach solution. Skipping this step is how a fungal problem moves from one limb to three.

Crossing and rubbing branches— two branches touching or on a collision course create a wound site. Where bark rubs against bark, disease and insects find an entry point. One of the two has to go. Pick the one that’s more weakly attached, or the one that would grow into a worse position.

Co-dominant stems— two equal-sized leaders competing for the top of the tree. Structurally weak, particularly on a species that can reach 20 metres. Pick one, take out the other. On a mature tree this should have been handled earlier, but it’s still worth fixing now rather than after a storm sorts it out for you.

Dealing with honey locust thorns

Honey locust thorns deserve their own section because they will absolutely ruin your afternoon if you’re not paying attention. Native honey locust thorns grow in clusters of three, typically 3–8 inches long, and they are not decorative. (Most of the Surrey honey locusts are thornless Shademaster cultivars, but even those aren’t fully thorn-free — check the branches before you assume.)

Minimum PPE: puncture-resistant leather gloves, not standard work gloves. Canvas and knit gloves do not stop a honey locust thorn. Long sleeves, eye protection, and thick-soled boots. If you’re using a pole saw overhead, add a face shield — cut material falls straight down, thorns included.

One thing nine out of ten people get wrong: don’t stack honey locust brush loosely and try to grab armfuls of it. Chip or cut it into sections before handling. Thorns that fall land point-up, which you’ll discover with your feet if you haven’t cleared your working area.

The right cuts: branch collar and the 3-cut method

The same principles apply to honey locust as every other tree. The reason to state them is that getting them wrong on a honey locust is slightly more expensive — thorns make it harder to correct a mistake once you’re in the middle of it.

Branch collar technique:cut just outside the swollen collar of tissue where the branch meets the trunk. Don’t cut flush with the trunk — you’d be removing the collar itself, which is where the tree seals the wound. Don’t leave a stub — the stub dies back and becomes a disease entry point. That strip of tissue at the base of every branch is doing a specific job. Leave it intact.

The 3-cut method for heavier branches:

Cut 1: notch from below, about a third of the way through, roughly 30cm from the trunk.

Cut 2: cut from above, a few centimetres further out from Cut 1. The branch falls, tearing off cleanly at the undercut notch instead of ripping bark down the trunk.

Cut 3: remove the remaining stub at the branch collar.

Skipping Cut 1 and going straight from above on a heavy branch is why so many DIY pruning jobs end with a strip of bark torn down the trunk and a tree that now needs more work than it did before. The Association of BC Forest Professionals covers this in their tree care resources if you want the technical detail.

When to stop doing it yourself

I’ll tell you when not to call us. If your honey locust is under 15 feet, you can reach every branch you need from the ground or a stable step ladder, and you’re only removing small dead wood — do it yourself. Good gloves, sharp pruners, 3-cut method for anything over 2cm diameter. You don’t need us for that.

Call us when:

The tree is over 20 feet.Working at height with a chainsaw and thorns in the mix is specifically the combination that goes wrong. Do not DIY tree work if the tree is over 20 feet or near the house. That’s not a caution for liability reasons — it’s because the injury rate is disproportionate to the cost of just calling someone.

Any branch is within 3 metres of power lines.That’s BC Hydro’s territory, not a weekend job. We coordinate utility clearance before working near lines.

The branch you’re looking at is larger than 10cm in diameter. Heavy sections need rigging to come down safely. A poorly planned cut on a large limb over a fence or vehicle is not recoverable.

You’re not sure if a branch is dead or just stressed. A stressed branch can recover. A dead one won’t. The difference affects how you handle it, and it’s not always obvious from the ground. A tree health assessment runs $150 and gets credited toward any work if you proceed — worth it before making a cut you can’t undo.

What professional honey locust pruning costs in Surrey

Rule of thumb: the price should be clear before anyone picks up a saw. Here’s what we charge for honey locust pruning and related work in Surrey and the Fraser Valley.

Those prices include the work, cleanup, chip or haul of the cut material, and stump grinding if any removal is needed. No surprise line items for thorn cleanup — we’ve priced that in.

For more on what’s included in a standard pruning visit, see our tree pruning services page.