Is my weeping willow safe in a storm?
Willow sits in the high-risk column of every ice-susceptibility list used in the Midwest: brittle wood, fine dense twigs that catch enormous glaze load, and a weeping habit that hangs all that weight at the end of a long lever arm. The failures are whole scaffold limbs tearing out at the trunk rather than twig litter, which is why a willow over a roof or driveway gets priced as emergency work instead of a scheduled cleanup.
What pruning can and can't prevent
Prune in full dormancy in late winter; willow is one of the few yard trees that genuinely tolerates a hard pollard or heavy reduction cycle rather than just surviving it. The trap is decay — willow compartmentalizes poorly, so every cut over roughly 4 inches becomes a rot column, and a willow reduced once needs re-cutting every few years forever, which is the recurring cost that usually tips the homeowner toward removal.
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