To prune or not to prune?

[jamie]

ok

sorry, its late and im whacked, ive re read it and yes i did make a mistake,

i looked back at a crown lift we did early last year and thought, hmm we took too much of of that, it was however to allow buses below it so it had to go 'up' to a certain height, but it still looks to hight just now

jamie

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
In this thread, BigJohn, Matt, Tom D, Nick, Rollacosta, and wiley_p
all are thinking like me, all this prunning is overrated.
Anyway, it was going well, until Guy and JP had to rain on the parade with their "101 reasons why a tree must be cut."

The subject is "to prune or not to prune"

I said it all depends.

Gee, raining on the parade, you goota let me know when it is suposed to be mututal admiration vs a discussion.

If the there is any question that the tree may be senescent, then by all means, don't take any green off.

If the tree is showing good vitality, then what is the probelm with maintaining some areas so that they do not "interfear" with others?

John spoke to allowing large suppressed limbs to whither and be sheas, why not manage the rest of the canopy so that that part of the tree may survive?

The differance between a tree in the wild and a tree on a lot is that the wild ones survival as an individual is not important to the whole. A survival rate of 1:100 may be good.

I cannot see the validity of the "do nothing" mindset. As proffesionals we need to bring our kills and knowledg in to manage the parts of the system wiuth the whole in mind.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
Each limb will have a collar that extends way out, maybe a foot or more.
The trees are beautiful, but once we remove the deadwood, there are these ugly stubby, cut, un-natural looking things

Mike, you're right, beauty is subjective. I'd hazard a guess that you are with a minority that finds beauty in big dead lower branches. Does the word "hazard" come to mind?

I view those 1' long collars as natural targets, just like 1" long collars. The principle is the same, the result eventually is a burl, which is a wondrous and marvelous thing. If you want to fence off the tree and admire the symmetry afforded by the retention of dead branches(until they fall), you're not alone. The Ancient Tree Forum in the UK loves that stuff.

What if the dead branch rips off some of the collar? What good did retaining it do then? I could of course suggest that symmetry could be restored after dead branch removal by reducing some of the live branches, but I don't want to get stoned (with rocks) right now.

The question of how much foliage loss the tree can afford seldom mentions a key point--how much photosynthesizing the different areas of foliage does. I think reducing and thinning some of the less productive foliage is better than cutting more productive food factories. Color and size of leaves and elongation of twigs, presence of pests, type of collar, are some indicators of how productive the factories are.

 

[ORclimber]

Since being self employed my pruning sure has changed. I tell a lot of customers their trees don't need anything, but I can make them look cleaner if they want to pay. Some have told me they really like that I'm not pushy. Others don't call back.

Almost walked off a job yesturday because a lady wanted me to cut her 45' honeylocust back off the road and back off her neighbors property. She says "what do you mean you can't!" and I replied "I won't" And went on about how I woudn't depreciate her property or ruin my professional reputation by doing lousy work. I pointed out the neighbors topped trees as examples of lousy work. Ended up removing 1 storm damaged limb from that tree and orchard pruning her apples.

Last fall I subbed out for a day and pruned some 70' fir trees. The company owner also pruned a couple similar trees. All I took was deadwood and shake off the trunk. He thinned by removing whole live branches to the trunk. We had a discusion on the ground about the differences in our pruning styles. I tactfully told him his trees looked like crap and I wasn't going to take more off the ones I'd pruned. He called me later to say that the customer was unhappy with the the trees he had pruned.

Compared to big trees, I take a lot higher % green growth off small ornamentals like weeping Japanese maples to get the look. Or fruit trees to get the space for fruit.