So what IS the best way to trim an Oak?

[MasterBlaster]

Previous threads have espouted the benefits of leaving as many suckers as possible.
As an old schooler, I was told to skin the suckers out(LionsTail), get the dead out, make the client happy.
Nowadays, I do the same thing, but I've stopped the LT. I strip the suckers from the limb out to a couple feet past the first forks, and stop.
If I'm understanding correctly, from the tree's point of view, this is bad for the tree. I can agree.
My problem is if all I did was remove only the dead, and left all those suckers the customer would look at me like I was crazy.
The norm around here for Live Oaks is to 'clean them out', or as Brian would say 'raise and gut'.
I try to keep the 'gutting' part to a minimum, but I will raise them(remove the pendant limbs) like a mofo... especially over roofs.
This is what the client/ tree service owner wants, so I do it.

How do you trim an Oak without cleaning out the bowl???

 

[MasterBlaster]

Don't everyone answer at once!

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Well said Rocky.
I'll add a before, then I'll add an after picture of a White Oak I trimmed.
Light was bad, picture size is fairly big (1200x800).
Here's before:

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

And after:

 

[MasterBlaster]

So, if you could, you would leave all the little(or bigger) suckers on the limb?

 

[Eagle1]

Clean them out....Thats it !!

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Here's a red oak before:

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

after:

 

[Eagle1]

The above is just my opinion and not intended to be representative of anybody else's standards. These are my personal standards. So if someone here does not agree, fine.

You are not Rocky. What did you do with him?

Very well put prunning methods. I do the same with the exception of taking off a co-dominate that would get in the way of growth desighed for a front lawn, etc....

 

[Eagle1]

Mike.
That oak in the background needs your help!!

 

[murphy4trees]

Nice work MM...
Takes atrained eye to really even notice much of a difference in well pruned tree before and after pics....
There was a guy selling jobs like crazy in Va... running around with before and after pics that looked great to the customers eye... My first reaction..."Oh my God... look what he did to that tree" ( not one inner brach on the whole tree)..
That's just the way it goes... and with todays level of consciousness... you can count on loosing jobs if you insist on doing progressive pruning.... I don't mind so much loosing the job and therefore the profit, as much as I do driving by to see how the trees have been butcherred..

 

[BigJohn]

At the last ISA convention I was to remove some reduce some and leave some. I use that alot now. If my boss says hay you left a piece of deadwood I would just that is the one I left or maybe its just a broken stub of deadwood and that is the I reduced when I shook the end of it off. When I am deadwooding a tree and thinning as directed I like to leave in the some the larger suckers but reducing them in half. I try and take it back to a nice lateral that looks good. Its just sucker. Some say run out to the ends do your thing and on the way back in remove the ones your broke on your way out. I guess if your going up there you might as well do what they want in reason. Just don't strip them out to the tips. This would cause an imbalance of hormones and result in more growth up top. I was recently told that hormones for growing roots are in the tops of the trees and hormones for green growth in in the roots. Cutting the tops reduces the root growth hormone and causes an upset in balance and so on.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by RockyJSquirrel
Butch-
On your next trim, ask yourself why you are making each cut before cutting. If your answer is "It's a green, healthy sprout but I normally cut everything green on the first half of every lead", then do not cut it.

Think of it as surgery- would you want a doctor cutting any more out of you than absolutely necessary? Do you want him cutting out 25% of your healthy tissue while he's in there cutting out the bad stuff? The tree has a valid reason for growing every single limb. Do you have a better reason for removing it?

Rocky, yur preaching to the choir. I know not to do that, but that is what the customer wants. And I don't half blame them. Even though it may be better for the tree, a million little suckers all over a limb do not LOOK good to me, or the customer.



(And I can't believe it looks good to anyone else, either...)

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Compromise

On interior sprouts, I tell the client I don't want to take more than 1/3 at a time. Then I take off the 1/3 that is closest to the trunk and the most crowded--that is, the 1/3 that would be most likely shed soon anyway.

"Poorly attached limbs (included bark) get lightened or removed"
Mr. Skwerl just said what I just said on the other thread. An echo, and it rhymes!

on a water or willow oak, that usually means clearing to the first fork, then thinning from there. The basic rule: favor those sprouts that have potential to become permanent limbs. Most clients will agree to contracting for followup pruning in 1-3-5 years, whatever the tree seems to need. :angel:

 

[MasterBlaster]

Thank you!

 

[TREETX]

I am with Guy on this one. Space or thing some epicormic stuff, but not more than 30%.

Trees don't have "extra limbs and leaves" . They are there for a reason, there is light to be taken advantage of, etc. If limbs become an energy sink, trees know what to do with them, they die.

Shaded leaves (shade leaves) and shaded branches are important. Especially in the heat of summer. When it is hitting the 90s daily(100 plus in the south), transpiration rates are so high that the outer crown in the sun has to shut down. It is then those inner leaves and branches doing the work for the tree.

I always consider live oaks different than post oaks or bur oaks. The live oaks are more of a mono canopy tree with few interior shaded branches. The bur oaks have more interior green. There is a reason for this, leave them alone.

Typically, epicormic sprouting is a result of overthinning so how in the wide world of sports could the solution be to thin even more??

.02

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I think the 30% is too much and arbitrary.

I will thin each node of poorly attatched branches and dead then maybe take the largest one if a branch is not wanted there.

Leave the trunk foliage if at all possible, sometimes it will not fly. Leave sprouting that is associated with wounds even if it has poor angle.

On a few ocasions I have asked to move bird feeders to branches that were formerly sprouts to try to bend them to a better angle. It takes a few years for the tissue to give up trying to right its self, but it will eventually work.

This falls back to MM's advocay to quit calling everything a sucker.

If it is small twiggy branching comming from a branch node, i'ts not nessesarily a sprout. If the only reason fro removal is aethetics, try to redefine the concept. The tree grew it, that is a signal that the tree requires food in that area.