Waiting until the leaves drop in fall is a rule of thumb for pruning shade trees, mainly because you can see bare limbs better, and the job is less “messy” without leaves attached to the cut branches.

Q: The drought has caused our very large oak trees to shed a ton of leaves, how should we handle this? Rake them up or just shred with the mower? There's very little grass under the oaks as it is, ...

It is a good time to plant shade trees because the weather is relatively mild and the new trees can work on producing a root system before they are faced with the challenges of a Central Texas summer.