Before the ground starts to freeze in mid to late October, it's time to start thinking about getting your trees ready for winter.

To keep your trees healthy and ready for their spring bloom, Crystal Bazar, Urban Forestry Technician with the City of Airdrie, suggests giving your trees a big drink of water.

"Turn on the hose to a slow trickle and kind of set it around the drip line and kind of just let it go for half a day or a day just to make sure the soil is well watered."

Bazar said that by watering your tree in the fall, it will retain the moisture and use it in the spring when it is ready to leaf out.

Another thing Bazar suggests is when all the leaves fall, you should get out your pruning shears and trip back all the dead branches.

"Once all the leaves are off your tree it's actually a good time to prune because you can see all the branch structure and everything like that, so you can prune out dead and broken branches and also inspect them for disease and damage."

Bazar said to tell if your branch is dead, there may be bark missing and there'll be no buds on the branch.

To learn more about tree maintenance and different tree diseases, visit the Parks department on the City of Airdrie website.