Siberian Elms in Lubbock: Prune, Keep or Take Down?

Updated 2026-10 · Lubbock, TX

Why there are so many

Siberian elm, Ulmus pumila, is the tree that does well where almost nothing else will. It takes drought, alkaline soil, heat and wind. It grows fast. It was planted widely across the Great Plains in the early twentieth century as a shelterbelt tree, and Lubbock planted it for the same reasons.

It also seeds itself everywhere. The papery seeds that pile up in gutters and window wells every spring are why there is a Siberian elm growing out of so many back fences and alley edges in town, often one nobody planted and nobody owns.

How it fails

The same traits that make it easy to grow make it a poor tree to live under. The wood is weak and brittle. Branches form tight, narrow forks with bark trapped inside them, and those forks split. Extension services across the plains states rate its storm resistance as very poor, and Texas Tech's plant resources pages describe it as a short-lived weed tree to avoid in landscapes.

In Lubbock that weakness meets the spring wind and the occasional ice storm. A mature Siberian elm usually loses limbs in pieces over years rather than all at once, which is easy to get used to until the piece is the size of a car.

The City of Lubbock's code lists Siberian elm among the species not to be planted as a new street tree without approval, alongside American elm, cottonwood and ash.

Keep, prune, or remove

Usually worth keeping and pruning

A young or medium tree with one main trunk, no splits, and a crown that is mostly alive. Pruning out deadwood and reducing the longest, heaviest limbs over the house buys years.

Usually a removal

A large tree with a visible crack at a main fork, a hollow trunk, heavy dieback at the top, or a history of dropping big limbs over a roof, a driveway or a line. Also the self-seeded one growing into the fence, which will only get more expensive.

A judgement call

A big, healthy-looking elm that shades the whole house. These are the hardest, because the shade is real and expensive to replace. Have it looked at by someone who will sound the trunk and look at the forks, and ask what the risk is over the next five years rather than the next one.

Pruning a Siberian elm properly

Thin rather than top. Cutting a Siberian elm back to stubs produces a flush of fast, weakly attached shoots at every cut, which is exactly the structure that fails in wind. Good pruning removes dead and crossing wood, reduces end weight on long limbs by cutting back to a side branch, and leaves the crown open enough for wind to pass through.

After it comes down

Siberian elm stumps sprout. Grinding below grade usually ends it; a stump left high will throw up a ring of shoots within a season. If you are replacing it, the city's recommended list includes cedar elm and lacebark elm, which give similar shade with far better wood.

Where to go next

• Tree removal in Lubbock
• Tree trimming and pruning
• Stump grinding, and stumps that sprout