I'll readily admit that I tend to be self-taught about most things related to my work and the rest of life since back in the day. I never quite fit into school the way I wanted since formality, regimen, being part of a group, standardization, taking tests, sitting at desks, having weird classmates and things like that were never all that fun for me. I seemed to do best to have seeds planted in whatever way they would be, and go off on my own with discovering how to do things in various ways, outside a classroom. Since the days of the internet, education has been a double-edged sword. Tons more information available than ever before, and immediate access. There's plenty of places for debate and Q&A, too. Problem is, so much of what's out there is just plain wrong, or very bad opinion. So you really need to be able to sort it all out.
However, it's very hard to be certified, accredited, licensed, and so forth without going through courses about this or that. Much of my main profession (construction) doesn't really require such formality. But in the world of tree management, there are certain instances where you either can't get work, or get the work you want without the esteem of going through the schoolin'.
There happens to be an aesthetic pruning course at Merritt College in Oakland, not far from my house. This is one of very few around the country, and maybe the only one, dedicated to this. Since there are billions of trees, it's needed. Just like how there's not nearly enough access to education about construction, my other full-time passion.
I enrolled in these classes. I believe there are 14 classes required within the realm of certification. Rather than the normal system of needing to take all the classes in a course in order to be legit, each class is more or less stand-alone, but all would be needed to actually become certified. There are another 5 or 6 classes that are more specific to this or that, and not part of the required classes. I know some hobbyists and homeowners may want to take a specific class or two without the goal of certification.
OK. So the first class was an introduction. This covered the history of pruning, which was very interesting. I'll probably delve into this more and write another post about this. We then went through the biology and science, and then the specifics of pruning, lightly touching on the basics. The instructor was engaging and very passionate about trees. His interest goes way beyond pruning, into such things as how the interaction with trees led to human civilization, how trees affect our lives in health and mind, how we view trees, how trees have a mechanism for communicating chemically between themselves and how they respond to their surroundings as if they have a brain, and some other areas of interest. We covered how good pruning is every bit as much about art as about health and safety and survival.
I gained a lot of knowledge that isn't easy to happen across from books and web-browsing. Things you can only get when you talk to people that have been around a while. It's easy to ask a question that might be hard to phrase or categorize, and rather than trying to figure out how to arrive at the answer, the instructor is immediately available. From there, you can go off and explore more about the subject at hand.
The second class delved more into pruning how, why an when, specifically about deciduous trees, with some crossover into all plants. There was a bit more science and biology, and a lot of anecdotal experience, which was shared between the instructor and the students. One instance of this is how we learned that cherry trees don't hide their wounds well at all and nasty scars are hard to avoid, so good and frequent pruning these is even more critical than for most trees. I know from experience that cherry trees can look really bad after getting years of mistreatment, but this explanation put it all in perspective. Learning about the peculiarities about a number of specific species is invaluable, and not always very easy to find on your own.
If I were to summarize the classes so far, I would say that everything covered so far is on target with what I've been doing all along, and more of a reinforcement than a revelation. As the teacher and I were discussing during some off time, the more you learn, the more you realize what you don't know and want to learn more about, as is true with any level of expertise in any profession or area of knowledge. The word "expert" is something that people need to be careful to use, since it's not set in stone. I supose the very best of the best in any field would be considered experts, but that absolutely doen't mean that their knowledge won't advance or even change direction as things evolve. The medical industry evolves in such a way. Experts from 50 years ago would be wy outside their league today. Most other industries are similar that way. And just cuz the world of horticulture includes trees and plants that haven't changed much in thousands or millions of years, the understanding does, as does the list of diseases and such, requiring constand updating. So I would call this instructor an expert based on what I experienced, and probably one of the best maybe dozen or so pruners in the state. He may actually dispute this, since actual experts are usually hesitant to call themselves such. He might mention that there are Japanese pruning experts that have been doing this for 70 years, and are truly the best. That may be the case, but I maintain that much of the Japanese method of learning is too involved in tradition, often losing sight of the evolution of the subject. And not to get off topic too much, but Japanese pruning is considered the premier method of pruning, though that certainly doesn't mean they do eveything right and everything else is a step down.
I can't think of anything we learned that is a contradiction of what I've been practicing, but rather a deeper understanding and refinement, along with some stories that increase the interest of this or that. I haven't yet felt any tedium in the class, or that it's just not for me.
So if you're in the SF Bay Area, and want to learn more about pruning or appreciating trees and shrubs, this is possibly the best way to do it. Classes are eaily accessible without red tape and reams of paperwork. The cost is affordable. They're interesting and fun, and the first instructor is a pleasure. I would guess that the other instructors teaching the remaining classes will also be enjoyable. I'll find out in a couple weeks.
Be a Tree Dawg Knight!
Showing posts with label tree pruning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tree pruning. Show all posts
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Friday, February 5, 2016
I Confess to Murder, and Will Commit Again Soon......Crape Myrtle Rehab 101
I did it. I didn't really want to, but it was the right thing to do. It ended up not being a big deal after all. Waiting for the fallout is the hard part. But I'll be doing it again, and probably often. They deserved it.
"Crape Murder". A term that's full of fun and intrigue. You have to realize that when there's a clever term for something, it usually means it's pretty common. In this case, that's a terrible thing.
In my defense, what I just did was re-murder. Now I guess that's sorta like using the word "overkill". Double jeopardy comes to mind too. The legal kind, not that game with Alex Trebek. Anyway, once a tree, especially a Crape Myrtle, has been murdered, the only recourse that can ever make it right is to commit one more murder, but in the right way.
The first thing to realize is that some people have tunnel vision. They may only think about a tree for the most obvious attribute. In the case of Crape Myrtles, that attribute is prolific flowering. But I would always argue that a tree should be more complete, and that structure is the most important thing, because you see it all year, instead of just a few days or weeks. And if you think about and look around at trees wherever you go, the most beautiful trees have great structure. You may see it, but not actually realize it. Around here, the most prominent trees are Valley Oaks, and their structure is always impressive with great tapered, twisty branches. There are no visible flowers or fall color, so that argument isn't even there. These trees usually look great in winter, especially if nobody has hacked them up.
Crapes have a fairly slender branching habit much like Japanese Maples, though generally straighter, more vertical, and more vigorous. The pollarding process that's so rampant actually increases the branch diameter quite a bit more than it would be normally, since the upper energy that's removed in the murdering process focuses that energy into the lower branches and trunk. The original murdering process is topping all the branches, which is almost never acceptable. Some people think of topping or heading as only pertaining to the main trunk leader, though it's really applied to any branches, too. Crapes don't usually have a strang main trunk leader, but rather a number of more or less equal scaffold branches.
Don't ever use this re-murdering technique to show anyone what your pruning skills are. It's laughable and you'll look like an idiot. It looks terrible, and IS terrible, but the only remedy. If you do aethetic pruning for a living, you might well want to avoid doing this at the risk of losing respect. You should, in fact, try to hide this as much as you can, which is really only by waiting until just before leaf-out so these silly cuts are hidden by lush foliage, if you know when that will be. You actually must plead your case to everyone who may see the tree. I found the best way to prove your point is by taking a pic, turning it into a drawing, printing it out, and drawing in what the tree will become after recovery, though there are various stages you need to point out, like after the first year, and after 5 or 6 years with very meticulous attention. You need to convey that the tree won't look much better than it did before for at least 3 or 4 years, but then again won't look worse. It would be great to document this process a few times a year for a number of years, but that has its obvious difficulties.
In simple terms, this re-murder involves removing the ugly knuckles/knobs/fists that arose from previous pollarding or topping pruning sessions and reactionary vigorous prolific re-sprouting of narrow shoots out of the tips of those branches, cutting the branch back to where it's a good start for developing new taper, and only allowing one or two new shoots (at the most 3 if there's a big hole to fill and the branch pattern isn't so noticeable in that part of the tree) to develop from that point on each branch until they become a nice extension of the poor mis-handled stump-limbs. Pruning and pinching several times a year will be needed. And it may well be embarassing to commit the re-murder and let people see what you've done, while assuring them that you know aht you're doing and it's the right course even though what you did looks almost exactly like the first totally botched pruning catastrophe by someone else that started the whole hot mess. It's like fixing dryrot. You have to tear it apart and start over, and there's nothing glamorous or pride-inducing about it. You then need to determine whether to cut those new shoots during the summer since unchecked they'll grow 3 or 4 feet or maybe even 6 feet or more. Cutting them will slow down the thickening a bit but increase ramification. It's all gonna be a matter of cutting back over and over but with intent, and the balance of thickening and ramification and short-term/long-term is a judgment call.
You do need to realize that wherever you make a heading cut to a branch larger than something like 3/4" in diameter, that the transition to new extension branches will probably never be seamless, and the abrupt transition will soften over time but never completely disappear. So you want to be precise about the angle the branch moves from there to hide the cut as well as move in the right direction. The new, emerging branch will be angled a bit from the branch it's exiting, probably 3 to 5 degrees, at that point. That's not always bad, since curving/twisting branches are frequently just a series of slight angles. And the heading cut will create a bit of a collar lump. But you can train the new leader to be almost in line or go off in any direction you wish. In most cases, closely in line for a short distance will be best. Having one new leader on that branch makes it easier to keep the crown from crowding and direct it where you want, but the transition will be more obvious. 2 leaders emerging will look more like a wishbone, but the transition will eventually be less obvious. If you go the route of the wishbone effect, it's better over time to train one of those two branches to be more dominant and more vertical, acting as the leader in that section, but you have time to figure it out. What you don't want to do is allow more branches to come out only to remove some later, since each emerging shoot will add girth to the transition, starting the whole crazy swollen knuckle situation all over again.
Rehab of a murdered Crape is pretty rarely done, and exceedingly rarely done right. I suppose most people who would commit the original heinous act are completely clueless to actually making improvements, really don't care or are misinformed and will continue on doing the same thing every year until there's no hope whatsoever. And someone who inherits this fiasco is probably unlikely to see the potential. I can't imagine that there would be a point where the tree could look as good as if it had been properly pruned in the past, or it it had even been totally ignored and left to grow naturally. Both those conditions are a vast improvement over the butchery that's so commonly practiced. So really, the best you can hope for is to be terribly diligent about cutting perfectly and often, and in a number of years the results will still be a vast improvement, if not perfect. There are no guarantees things will look great. Maybe in 20 years of well-managed growth, things might look almost undetectably normal, but that's a big maybe. The luxury of having what you'd really like was lost early on. It would be nice to show people early on before or shortly after planting that there are really only two good options: Let the tree grow almost completely unpruned for the duration; or only allow someone who really can do it right to maintain it. Pruning it incorrectly does nothing but create an ugly tree whilst wasting many hours to do so. And once you do any moderate to severe pruning, you have to keep doing it forever, or at least for many years.
Worst case, after rehab, the tree just never looks great, or you tire of the frequent care needed, and you cut it down, and either replace it or let a new tree sprout up from the severed trunk at ground level. If the tree is gonna look terrible anyway, there's no real reason not to give it a couple years and make the best attempt you can and see where it goes. If you really do decide to ultimately cut it down, it effectively will be like growing a new tree from that point at a much faster rate. This will probably only work if you let it become a multi-trunk, with 5 or 7 main stems coming up, or one trunk if there's something like shrubs hiding the bottom couple of feet. And you're gonna get a lot of suckers coming up from the ground and roots that need to be removed constantly.
This is no short-term deal. The first year is the most critical, and will require plenty of pinching at the tips almost immediately when they emerge, while selectively leaving a lot of the new shoots that should pop up from epicormic (hidden dormant) buds in the lower section of the tree to develop either temporarily to thicken up the lowest section of each branch to increase taper, if needed, or allowing those shoots to become new well-placed secondary branches, since the original ones were unwisely removed due to poor judgment (everyone seems to enjoy removing all secondary branches from Crapes or some peculiar reason). Most shoots will effectively be water sprouts, and there's nothing you can do about that but remove them or train them into more normal branches. You'll need to make some cuts and calculate the taper to arrive at a given long-term height, and then maybe cut some limbs again as the canopy clears up enough so you can visualize the outcome. If the branches you're cutting are big, as large as 3 or 4 inches, then you have to realize that for a taper that looks somewhat normal, you need to allow at least 20 and probably more like 30 times the length of the diameter of that parent branch, so it will ultimately need to be quite a bit taller than you might think. Removing a 4" branch completely is probably a bad idea unless it can be completely concealed from clear vantage points. But having a tree be taller and maintained is a lot better than stumpy and small or stumpy plus spindly and medium. Remember, you can make the tree more airy to lighten up the look or make it so that light comes through or allows you to see out the window or something. And if all you care about is the flowers, but don't care what the tree looks like in winter, or anytime other than when flowering, for that matter, then all this about murder and rehab is irrelevant.
For the first year, to repair things as quickly as possible, you might be sacrificing flowering to some degree or entirely. This needs to be determined as the replacement branches grow in, and cut them back at the right time. This gets a bit involved, so stay tuned for further instructions. If you don't understand where I'm coming from on this, then you probably shouldn't be touching your tree, since you don't understand the tapering, ramification, reaction, and related concepts. Chances are, it's not an area you studied a lot. In that case, you can cut it down as described above, hire someone that really knows what they're doing (and the guys on Youtube who say they know how to fix Crapes, really don't), or just live with ugly trees that look pretty good for a few weeks in the Summer (only for the flowers) but look hideous in the Winter and most of the year. Maybe most people don't notice the issues, but we tree aficionados do. I suppose if your home is no prize and treating the trees better than you do the home itself may not make sense, though you could argue that a great tree might distract the eye form an eyesore of a home depending on your perspective. But if you have a great home, then you really want to have very good trees, or things just don't add up.
You can apply all this to other trees, but Crape Myrtles have strangely been the primary target for this operation over the last 20 years or so. It used to be that Fruitless Mulberry trees were the ones getting all this nonsense, and sycamores to a degree, but they pretty much went by the wayside. I suppose because the only apparent redeeming quality of mulberry trees to most people was the ability to grow into a sizable tree very quickly, and with sycamores, people are just overwhelmed at the size. This knuckle-worship isn't a good strategy, especially because the people that plant those trees are the same ones who think trees need to be kept small.
Have fun!
"Crape Murder". A term that's full of fun and intrigue. You have to realize that when there's a clever term for something, it usually means it's pretty common. In this case, that's a terrible thing.
In my defense, what I just did was re-murder. Now I guess that's sorta like using the word "overkill". Double jeopardy comes to mind too. The legal kind, not that game with Alex Trebek. Anyway, once a tree, especially a Crape Myrtle, has been murdered, the only recourse that can ever make it right is to commit one more murder, but in the right way.
The first thing to realize is that some people have tunnel vision. They may only think about a tree for the most obvious attribute. In the case of Crape Myrtles, that attribute is prolific flowering. But I would always argue that a tree should be more complete, and that structure is the most important thing, because you see it all year, instead of just a few days or weeks. And if you think about and look around at trees wherever you go, the most beautiful trees have great structure. You may see it, but not actually realize it. Around here, the most prominent trees are Valley Oaks, and their structure is always impressive with great tapered, twisty branches. There are no visible flowers or fall color, so that argument isn't even there. These trees usually look great in winter, especially if nobody has hacked them up.
Crapes have a fairly slender branching habit much like Japanese Maples, though generally straighter, more vertical, and more vigorous. The pollarding process that's so rampant actually increases the branch diameter quite a bit more than it would be normally, since the upper energy that's removed in the murdering process focuses that energy into the lower branches and trunk. The original murdering process is topping all the branches, which is almost never acceptable. Some people think of topping or heading as only pertaining to the main trunk leader, though it's really applied to any branches, too. Crapes don't usually have a strang main trunk leader, but rather a number of more or less equal scaffold branches.
Don't ever use this re-murdering technique to show anyone what your pruning skills are. It's laughable and you'll look like an idiot. It looks terrible, and IS terrible, but the only remedy. If you do aethetic pruning for a living, you might well want to avoid doing this at the risk of losing respect. You should, in fact, try to hide this as much as you can, which is really only by waiting until just before leaf-out so these silly cuts are hidden by lush foliage, if you know when that will be. You actually must plead your case to everyone who may see the tree. I found the best way to prove your point is by taking a pic, turning it into a drawing, printing it out, and drawing in what the tree will become after recovery, though there are various stages you need to point out, like after the first year, and after 5 or 6 years with very meticulous attention. You need to convey that the tree won't look much better than it did before for at least 3 or 4 years, but then again won't look worse. It would be great to document this process a few times a year for a number of years, but that has its obvious difficulties.
In simple terms, this re-murder involves removing the ugly knuckles/knobs/fists that arose from previous pollarding or topping pruning sessions and reactionary vigorous prolific re-sprouting of narrow shoots out of the tips of those branches, cutting the branch back to where it's a good start for developing new taper, and only allowing one or two new shoots (at the most 3 if there's a big hole to fill and the branch pattern isn't so noticeable in that part of the tree) to develop from that point on each branch until they become a nice extension of the poor mis-handled stump-limbs. Pruning and pinching several times a year will be needed. And it may well be embarassing to commit the re-murder and let people see what you've done, while assuring them that you know aht you're doing and it's the right course even though what you did looks almost exactly like the first totally botched pruning catastrophe by someone else that started the whole hot mess. It's like fixing dryrot. You have to tear it apart and start over, and there's nothing glamorous or pride-inducing about it. You then need to determine whether to cut those new shoots during the summer since unchecked they'll grow 3 or 4 feet or maybe even 6 feet or more. Cutting them will slow down the thickening a bit but increase ramification. It's all gonna be a matter of cutting back over and over but with intent, and the balance of thickening and ramification and short-term/long-term is a judgment call.
You do need to realize that wherever you make a heading cut to a branch larger than something like 3/4" in diameter, that the transition to new extension branches will probably never be seamless, and the abrupt transition will soften over time but never completely disappear. So you want to be precise about the angle the branch moves from there to hide the cut as well as move in the right direction. The new, emerging branch will be angled a bit from the branch it's exiting, probably 3 to 5 degrees, at that point. That's not always bad, since curving/twisting branches are frequently just a series of slight angles. And the heading cut will create a bit of a collar lump. But you can train the new leader to be almost in line or go off in any direction you wish. In most cases, closely in line for a short distance will be best. Having one new leader on that branch makes it easier to keep the crown from crowding and direct it where you want, but the transition will be more obvious. 2 leaders emerging will look more like a wishbone, but the transition will eventually be less obvious. If you go the route of the wishbone effect, it's better over time to train one of those two branches to be more dominant and more vertical, acting as the leader in that section, but you have time to figure it out. What you don't want to do is allow more branches to come out only to remove some later, since each emerging shoot will add girth to the transition, starting the whole crazy swollen knuckle situation all over again.
Rehab of a murdered Crape is pretty rarely done, and exceedingly rarely done right. I suppose most people who would commit the original heinous act are completely clueless to actually making improvements, really don't care or are misinformed and will continue on doing the same thing every year until there's no hope whatsoever. And someone who inherits this fiasco is probably unlikely to see the potential. I can't imagine that there would be a point where the tree could look as good as if it had been properly pruned in the past, or it it had even been totally ignored and left to grow naturally. Both those conditions are a vast improvement over the butchery that's so commonly practiced. So really, the best you can hope for is to be terribly diligent about cutting perfectly and often, and in a number of years the results will still be a vast improvement, if not perfect. There are no guarantees things will look great. Maybe in 20 years of well-managed growth, things might look almost undetectably normal, but that's a big maybe. The luxury of having what you'd really like was lost early on. It would be nice to show people early on before or shortly after planting that there are really only two good options: Let the tree grow almost completely unpruned for the duration; or only allow someone who really can do it right to maintain it. Pruning it incorrectly does nothing but create an ugly tree whilst wasting many hours to do so. And once you do any moderate to severe pruning, you have to keep doing it forever, or at least for many years.
Worst case, after rehab, the tree just never looks great, or you tire of the frequent care needed, and you cut it down, and either replace it or let a new tree sprout up from the severed trunk at ground level. If the tree is gonna look terrible anyway, there's no real reason not to give it a couple years and make the best attempt you can and see where it goes. If you really do decide to ultimately cut it down, it effectively will be like growing a new tree from that point at a much faster rate. This will probably only work if you let it become a multi-trunk, with 5 or 7 main stems coming up, or one trunk if there's something like shrubs hiding the bottom couple of feet. And you're gonna get a lot of suckers coming up from the ground and roots that need to be removed constantly.
This is no short-term deal. The first year is the most critical, and will require plenty of pinching at the tips almost immediately when they emerge, while selectively leaving a lot of the new shoots that should pop up from epicormic (hidden dormant) buds in the lower section of the tree to develop either temporarily to thicken up the lowest section of each branch to increase taper, if needed, or allowing those shoots to become new well-placed secondary branches, since the original ones were unwisely removed due to poor judgment (everyone seems to enjoy removing all secondary branches from Crapes or some peculiar reason). Most shoots will effectively be water sprouts, and there's nothing you can do about that but remove them or train them into more normal branches. You'll need to make some cuts and calculate the taper to arrive at a given long-term height, and then maybe cut some limbs again as the canopy clears up enough so you can visualize the outcome. If the branches you're cutting are big, as large as 3 or 4 inches, then you have to realize that for a taper that looks somewhat normal, you need to allow at least 20 and probably more like 30 times the length of the diameter of that parent branch, so it will ultimately need to be quite a bit taller than you might think. Removing a 4" branch completely is probably a bad idea unless it can be completely concealed from clear vantage points. But having a tree be taller and maintained is a lot better than stumpy and small or stumpy plus spindly and medium. Remember, you can make the tree more airy to lighten up the look or make it so that light comes through or allows you to see out the window or something. And if all you care about is the flowers, but don't care what the tree looks like in winter, or anytime other than when flowering, for that matter, then all this about murder and rehab is irrelevant.
For the first year, to repair things as quickly as possible, you might be sacrificing flowering to some degree or entirely. This needs to be determined as the replacement branches grow in, and cut them back at the right time. This gets a bit involved, so stay tuned for further instructions. If you don't understand where I'm coming from on this, then you probably shouldn't be touching your tree, since you don't understand the tapering, ramification, reaction, and related concepts. Chances are, it's not an area you studied a lot. In that case, you can cut it down as described above, hire someone that really knows what they're doing (and the guys on Youtube who say they know how to fix Crapes, really don't), or just live with ugly trees that look pretty good for a few weeks in the Summer (only for the flowers) but look hideous in the Winter and most of the year. Maybe most people don't notice the issues, but we tree aficionados do. I suppose if your home is no prize and treating the trees better than you do the home itself may not make sense, though you could argue that a great tree might distract the eye form an eyesore of a home depending on your perspective. But if you have a great home, then you really want to have very good trees, or things just don't add up.
You can apply all this to other trees, but Crape Myrtles have strangely been the primary target for this operation over the last 20 years or so. It used to be that Fruitless Mulberry trees were the ones getting all this nonsense, and sycamores to a degree, but they pretty much went by the wayside. I suppose because the only apparent redeeming quality of mulberry trees to most people was the ability to grow into a sizable tree very quickly, and with sycamores, people are just overwhelmed at the size. This knuckle-worship isn't a good strategy, especially because the people that plant those trees are the same ones who think trees need to be kept small.
Have fun!
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
How Much is That Dogwood in the Window?: Economics of Tree Care
The mentality people have when it comes to spending money is usually stunning. And it seems that almost every person has priorities that seem ludicous to others. They HATE spending money on this, even if it's practical, but don't even think about splurging on some things that don't make a lot of senes in many cases. I'll get to trees in a minute, but this part puts things in some perspective. Here are a few examples:
1. Tons of people will do anything they can to avoid paying for their kids' education more than they have to, but are happy to shell out tens of thousands for a car, or buy a much larger home than they need or really can afford, and will spend hours commuting each week to get to it.
2. A large percentage of people spend thousands, or even tens of thousands, to bury the dead. I get that it's an emotional thing, but regardless of your religion or other beliefs, a dead body is pretty much of little value, and the soul is what counts, but it has left the body by that point. So the body is really just a bunch of chemicals and minerals that need no special, expensive treatment. I'll be perfectly happy if I'm put into a Hefty bag at my demise, and left on the curb on Friday morning. If you really want to go to some effort, plant a tree in my honor.
3. People are really hesitant to spend money on good health care, but have no problem spending tens of thousands on jewelry, when they can get beautiful jewelry that looks every bit as good for a tiny fraction.
4. A lot of people have no issue with splurging on incredibly expensive football tickets, especially the Suer Bowl, or fancy vacations with hotel rooms that cost perhaps thousands per night. For a place to sleep, when you really should spend that time touring the place you went to all the trouble to get to.
OK, you get my point. So on to how trees fit into all this.
Most people who own a fairly nice home or condo pay thousands or tens of thousands to landscape, and quite a bit each year to maintain their landscapes. Most homeowners will spend at least $100 a month just to have lawns mowed and leaves blown every week or two. But these same people would never think about spending a few hundred per year to maintain their trees, even though they're permanent and just as important as or more important than a temporary lawn. A mature tree can't be easily replaced, and it might be worth tens of thousands in value to the home, whereas a lawn can be easily replaced for a small fraction of that. And you dont have to water a tree much, if at all, whereas grass is very thirsty.
People give little thought to the quality of pruning, and spend money to have good trees butchered by people who don't know what they're doing, mostly because they don't know any better, but also because they're cheapskates. Or they get the brilliant idea that they can do a good job themselves, but this is highly unlikely. They pay to have leaves raked, which takes very little skill, but plunge into pruning trees themselves, which takes much skill. Not so smart.
If you figure a tree should really be pruned twice a year, EVERY YEAR, or at least once a year minimum, as I maintain, then you might be paying $100 or $200 for a very nice tree per year, which will look good all year, including the leafless winter. You have to figure out for yourself how much this costs for your whole property, but it's unlikely that it will be more than mow and blow.
I was included in a discussion with a very in-demand aesthetic pruner, who does high-end work. He has clients that have paid thousands or more for a single Japanese Maple, and they gladly pay a few hundred each year per tree to keep them healthy and happy. You mess those puppies up, and you threw a bunch of money away on a tree that can never be great again.
Keep in mind that the more infrequently you prune a tree, the more it costs per session to prune. And it basically never can look great or be as healthy as possible if you wait too long. Common sense tells you that paying twice a year for minor pruning will cost more than major pruning every 5 years, but the cost difference may not be as much as you think. You might also use that reasoning of infrequency and think that maybe you just mow your lawn 2 or 3 times a year but leave it looking ratty most of the time. But hardly anyone with a lick of sense would do that.
Give this some thought, and really understand how important your trees are, and why you're probably neglecting them. Or hacking them up.
1. Tons of people will do anything they can to avoid paying for their kids' education more than they have to, but are happy to shell out tens of thousands for a car, or buy a much larger home than they need or really can afford, and will spend hours commuting each week to get to it.
2. A large percentage of people spend thousands, or even tens of thousands, to bury the dead. I get that it's an emotional thing, but regardless of your religion or other beliefs, a dead body is pretty much of little value, and the soul is what counts, but it has left the body by that point. So the body is really just a bunch of chemicals and minerals that need no special, expensive treatment. I'll be perfectly happy if I'm put into a Hefty bag at my demise, and left on the curb on Friday morning. If you really want to go to some effort, plant a tree in my honor.
3. People are really hesitant to spend money on good health care, but have no problem spending tens of thousands on jewelry, when they can get beautiful jewelry that looks every bit as good for a tiny fraction.
4. A lot of people have no issue with splurging on incredibly expensive football tickets, especially the Suer Bowl, or fancy vacations with hotel rooms that cost perhaps thousands per night. For a place to sleep, when you really should spend that time touring the place you went to all the trouble to get to.
OK, you get my point. So on to how trees fit into all this.
Most people who own a fairly nice home or condo pay thousands or tens of thousands to landscape, and quite a bit each year to maintain their landscapes. Most homeowners will spend at least $100 a month just to have lawns mowed and leaves blown every week or two. But these same people would never think about spending a few hundred per year to maintain their trees, even though they're permanent and just as important as or more important than a temporary lawn. A mature tree can't be easily replaced, and it might be worth tens of thousands in value to the home, whereas a lawn can be easily replaced for a small fraction of that. And you dont have to water a tree much, if at all, whereas grass is very thirsty.
People give little thought to the quality of pruning, and spend money to have good trees butchered by people who don't know what they're doing, mostly because they don't know any better, but also because they're cheapskates. Or they get the brilliant idea that they can do a good job themselves, but this is highly unlikely. They pay to have leaves raked, which takes very little skill, but plunge into pruning trees themselves, which takes much skill. Not so smart.
If you figure a tree should really be pruned twice a year, EVERY YEAR, or at least once a year minimum, as I maintain, then you might be paying $100 or $200 for a very nice tree per year, which will look good all year, including the leafless winter. You have to figure out for yourself how much this costs for your whole property, but it's unlikely that it will be more than mow and blow.
I was included in a discussion with a very in-demand aesthetic pruner, who does high-end work. He has clients that have paid thousands or more for a single Japanese Maple, and they gladly pay a few hundred each year per tree to keep them healthy and happy. You mess those puppies up, and you threw a bunch of money away on a tree that can never be great again.
Keep in mind that the more infrequently you prune a tree, the more it costs per session to prune. And it basically never can look great or be as healthy as possible if you wait too long. Common sense tells you that paying twice a year for minor pruning will cost more than major pruning every 5 years, but the cost difference may not be as much as you think. You might also use that reasoning of infrequency and think that maybe you just mow your lawn 2 or 3 times a year but leave it looking ratty most of the time. But hardly anyone with a lick of sense would do that.
Give this some thought, and really understand how important your trees are, and why you're probably neglecting them. Or hacking them up.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
So Disagreeable Like on Capitol Hill: Experts Confuse the Pruning Universe
I don't know if I've seen any other subject besides politics and pruning, where the experts and people we look to for guidance can so disagree on fundamentals.
I can't say most of them are wrong, but approaches can be quite contrary. I've read hundreds of articles on most aspects of pruning. The only thing I can do is try to understand where they're coming from, see if there's a consensus, throw out what doesn't make sense, put some logic to it, apply personal experience, and in many cases think outside the box.
I believe that most writers on the subject realize that teaching someone all about pruning within a short article is really hard without the reader losing patience. And the reader may have little, if any experience on the subject. Because of this, most articles really tend to dumb things down to the point where the student can't screw things up too badly or poke their eye out or fall off a ladder or cut their finger off, but they miss the mark on some of the finer or more confusing points.
You should also understand that most people simply ignore their trees for extended periods, then over-prune to make up for it. I never recommend this, but since it's human nature, the guides tend to reflect this approach.
You'll see most articles focus on how to cut properly, but spend less time on where and why to cut or not cut this or that, and consequences of every cut. I find that the instructions on how to cut are usually accurate and quite good. Since you can find these instructions everywhere, I tend to avoid spending much time on that. I spend much more time preaching about the where, why, and when.
I see perhaps the most confusing subject is when to prune this or that. You'll usually see it mentioned that most trees and shrubs should be pruned during late winter, early spring, or summer, depending on the specie, when it flowers, and your goal. I rarely see anything mentioned about how your climate affects this timing. This is puzzling. If you live in Miami, shouldn't your timing be different than if you're in Fargo? Maybe it doesn't change that much with certain species, or a specific tree simply doesn't grow in your location, so the point may be meaningless at times.
Plenty of articles deal with timing your pruning for maximum flowering or fruiting benefit. They're pretty much on the mark, but they don't deal with some finer issues about pruning throughout the year, which I write about a lot. Many articles deal with trees that are problematic, either because they catch disease easily or bleed heavily b or respond to pruning in notable ways. But some of this advice may be contradictory. For instance, pruning a birch or elm during the summer may be best to avoid bleeding or water sprouts, etc., but the cuts can attract well-known pests that can kill the tree. So it seems most articles reflect the better decision, though you have to learn more to make the right decision. Once again, as I can't mention often enough, frequent, minor pruning is much better than infrequent, major pruning.
I have a post or two that deal with timing. My rationale is a based on many hours of research, and as things progress, my approach may change somewhat, just as it may change from one individual tree to another of the same specie.
Regarding thinning, heading back, topping, pollarding, Crape Murder, butchery, etc. I have very strong feelings about all of these treatments and those opinions run rampant throughout my posts. Be very careful while watching videos. Much more often than not, the ones that claim to show you the right way, don't.
Isn't this fun?
I can't say most of them are wrong, but approaches can be quite contrary. I've read hundreds of articles on most aspects of pruning. The only thing I can do is try to understand where they're coming from, see if there's a consensus, throw out what doesn't make sense, put some logic to it, apply personal experience, and in many cases think outside the box.
I believe that most writers on the subject realize that teaching someone all about pruning within a short article is really hard without the reader losing patience. And the reader may have little, if any experience on the subject. Because of this, most articles really tend to dumb things down to the point where the student can't screw things up too badly or poke their eye out or fall off a ladder or cut their finger off, but they miss the mark on some of the finer or more confusing points.
You should also understand that most people simply ignore their trees for extended periods, then over-prune to make up for it. I never recommend this, but since it's human nature, the guides tend to reflect this approach.
You'll see most articles focus on how to cut properly, but spend less time on where and why to cut or not cut this or that, and consequences of every cut. I find that the instructions on how to cut are usually accurate and quite good. Since you can find these instructions everywhere, I tend to avoid spending much time on that. I spend much more time preaching about the where, why, and when.
I see perhaps the most confusing subject is when to prune this or that. You'll usually see it mentioned that most trees and shrubs should be pruned during late winter, early spring, or summer, depending on the specie, when it flowers, and your goal. I rarely see anything mentioned about how your climate affects this timing. This is puzzling. If you live in Miami, shouldn't your timing be different than if you're in Fargo? Maybe it doesn't change that much with certain species, or a specific tree simply doesn't grow in your location, so the point may be meaningless at times.
Plenty of articles deal with timing your pruning for maximum flowering or fruiting benefit. They're pretty much on the mark, but they don't deal with some finer issues about pruning throughout the year, which I write about a lot. Many articles deal with trees that are problematic, either because they catch disease easily or bleed heavily b or respond to pruning in notable ways. But some of this advice may be contradictory. For instance, pruning a birch or elm during the summer may be best to avoid bleeding or water sprouts, etc., but the cuts can attract well-known pests that can kill the tree. So it seems most articles reflect the better decision, though you have to learn more to make the right decision. Once again, as I can't mention often enough, frequent, minor pruning is much better than infrequent, major pruning.
I have a post or two that deal with timing. My rationale is a based on many hours of research, and as things progress, my approach may change somewhat, just as it may change from one individual tree to another of the same specie.
Regarding thinning, heading back, topping, pollarding, Crape Murder, butchery, etc. I have very strong feelings about all of these treatments and those opinions run rampant throughout my posts. Be very careful while watching videos. Much more often than not, the ones that claim to show you the right way, don't.
Isn't this fun?
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Things Almost All Pruners Get Wrong
Almost everyone who trims trees gets at least some of these things wrong. All these issues are discussed in detail in my other posts, so I'm only going to touch briefly on these items here.
In order, these are the most common errors I see in almost every managed tree:
WHORLS
Too many branches originating from the same point. Branches should be staggered. Bonsai artists are usually exceptionally diligent about this, and everyone else can learn a lesson from their styling. Unfortunately, if you don't avoid them very early, you're stuck with them for good and have to make the best of it.
OVERLY-LONG, DISPROPORTIONATE, UNTAPERING, TOO-STRAIGHT BRANCHES
These branches overwhelm the tree's balance, especially in relation to the trunk, create weakness, and just don't look good. This is equally caused by over- AND under-pruning, ironically usually simultaneously.
WAITING TOO LONG
Once you play catch-up, it's a long recovery that may never turn out right.
LIONTAILING
Cutting out way too many secondary/intermediate branches, leaving almost all growth at the very fringes. Good thinning does not remove everything below the top. Ramification throughout the tree is important.
BLUNT TIPS
A tree will always look pruned (not in a good way) if you cut the tips off the branches, pretty much anything larger than the thickness of a pencil. This also leads to over-thinning the canopy if you're thinning out the ramified tips too much. Sometimes, however, this is necessary and good plans will correct this remedy within short order.
VERTICAL BRANCHES/WATER SPROUTS
These are hard to avoid after major pruning in some trees and usually look bad and are unhealthy, so diligent management is key. Frequent, minor pruning is much better. Pruning more than about 25% in most trees is best avoided, and with good, frequent pruning, more than 10% should rarely be needed.
LOW CROTCH ANGLES
Branches should exit from the trunk at angles that increase strength and look good. Included bark is best avoided.
TOPPING
This is the queen mother of all pruning mistakes, along with its little brothers, pollarding and Crape Murder. Luckily, most people realize topping is just a terrible thing to do in almost all circumstances. Unfortunately, most people are guilty of pollarding to a point, whether unintentional or semi-intentional.
Ok. Pay attention to this in your own trees, learn about and check out what a really good tree looks like, and be careful who attacks your trees. Pruning is, after all, an attack from which it must recover. You can assault it with infrequent bloody violence or give it a frequent attack of sweet, sweet love. You decide.
In order, these are the most common errors I see in almost every managed tree:
WHORLS
Too many branches originating from the same point. Branches should be staggered. Bonsai artists are usually exceptionally diligent about this, and everyone else can learn a lesson from their styling. Unfortunately, if you don't avoid them very early, you're stuck with them for good and have to make the best of it.
OVERLY-LONG, DISPROPORTIONATE, UNTAPERING, TOO-STRAIGHT BRANCHES
These branches overwhelm the tree's balance, especially in relation to the trunk, create weakness, and just don't look good. This is equally caused by over- AND under-pruning, ironically usually simultaneously.
WAITING TOO LONG
Once you play catch-up, it's a long recovery that may never turn out right.
LIONTAILING
Cutting out way too many secondary/intermediate branches, leaving almost all growth at the very fringes. Good thinning does not remove everything below the top. Ramification throughout the tree is important.
BLUNT TIPS
A tree will always look pruned (not in a good way) if you cut the tips off the branches, pretty much anything larger than the thickness of a pencil. This also leads to over-thinning the canopy if you're thinning out the ramified tips too much. Sometimes, however, this is necessary and good plans will correct this remedy within short order.
VERTICAL BRANCHES/WATER SPROUTS
These are hard to avoid after major pruning in some trees and usually look bad and are unhealthy, so diligent management is key. Frequent, minor pruning is much better. Pruning more than about 25% in most trees is best avoided, and with good, frequent pruning, more than 10% should rarely be needed.
LOW CROTCH ANGLES
Branches should exit from the trunk at angles that increase strength and look good. Included bark is best avoided.
TOPPING
This is the queen mother of all pruning mistakes, along with its little brothers, pollarding and Crape Murder. Luckily, most people realize topping is just a terrible thing to do in almost all circumstances. Unfortunately, most people are guilty of pollarding to a point, whether unintentional or semi-intentional.
Ok. Pay attention to this in your own trees, learn about and check out what a really good tree looks like, and be careful who attacks your trees. Pruning is, after all, an attack from which it must recover. You can assault it with infrequent bloody violence or give it a frequent attack of sweet, sweet love. You decide.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Promoting & Perpetuating Potentially Perfect Plant Pruning, Perennially
If you want to make a tree be the best it can possibly be, it takes a little work every year. As much as nature helps, no such thing as a naturally perfect tree. The concept that it's best to let nature take care of it isn't accurate. I'll explain more about that specifically in another post.
ISA standards are proudly followed by the best pruners and arborists, but there's a lot more to it than that. In some cases, you have to break the rules for the greater good. Knowing when to do this is an art. Since most pruners see it as a job and not an art, they usually fall short of the best results, usually by a large margin. It sometimes can be worse if a client dictates that they want things a certain way, or want a more conservative or aggressive approach than what is really the best long-term need
As far as what I strive for in pruning a tree perfectly over the long term, these are the goals:
HIDE THE EVIDENCE
The ultimate goal of any pruning undertaking should be to conceal all evidence that pruning ever took place. Overcoming this paradox takes great long-term planning. I once saw a Beech tree at a show that was renowned for its great balance and taper and lack of visible scars. It was as flawless as Grace Kelly. The tree was probably about 2 feet tall and at least 20 or 30 years old. This nearly perfect, natural-looking tiny tree was the result of meticulous, frequent, strategic pruning. Removing or pinching back a branch at just the right time will reduce or eliminate obvious scarring. Ideally, branches should be cut when they're small enough to heal/seal over within 2 or 3 years, or at least a relatively short time. Any branches over about 1-1/2" in diameter will leave scarring for years, maybe forever. However, if you cut back or remove branches too early, this can reduce tapering and induce sparse branching. This timing and balance is difficult for most pruners to achieve or even understand.
STRONG, TAPERED TRUNK
A thick, tapered trunk will reveal some history, strength and permanence. The trunk by virtue of its texture, shape and bark may also be the most interesting feature a tree has to offer. Careful long-term planning and pruning is needed to achieve a terrific trunk. Just like how our torsos are more important than our arms and legs. But thick isn't necessarily good for us. I have a ratio in mind, of between 20-to-1 and 30-to-1, of the height of the tree in relation to its trunk diameter near the base, tapering to zero at the top. This is good taper. Very young trees won't have this ratio unless you work really hard at it, but mature trees can almost all achieve this with the exception of some naturally stubborn skinny species. But even those species can be optimized. Older trees take on a ratio that may be more like 10-1 or less, which is really solid.
LACK OF DEATH, DISEASE, DAMAGE AND DANGER
Wouldn't we all like this? For various reasons, all trees have branches that just die. Some we can prevent, others we can't. Some branches get diseased or damaged. Some pose an imminent danger of breaking or otherwise causing destruction. We need to remove these as soon as possible. If we don't, the wind and gravity might do it for us, or disease can spread the branch itself. Removing death, damage, danger and disease should be the first step each time you prune. For whatever reason, real or perceived, a living branch can't exist if there's a dead one in the way. Removing dead wood tends to invigorate a tree.
WELL-DISTRIBUTED, TAPERING BRANCHES
This is where almost everyone misses the mark. Too often, you see a whole bunch of branches emerge from the same point about 6 to 8 feet off the ground, grow with inadequate tapering, proportion and angle, bypass important intermediate branches (ramification), and finish with a burst of most of the branches and foliage at the outer edges. Frequent, proper pruning will promote better distribution and balance, creating a far better-looking and healthier tree. Having this ramification is also important so that there is a replacement branch fairly close by in case another branch dies or otherwise has to go, thus reducing bare areas like in Charlie Brown's Xmas tree. Snoopy and Linus can't fix that problem. Only time and spiffy actions can, best case.
AVOIDING WHORLS AND REDUNDANCY
Whenever you see whorls (more than one branch coming out of the trunk or another branch in one spot), it's redundant. A trunk or branch should extend a bit before another branch emerges. Whorls create ugly bulges and eliminate attractive, staggered branching patterns that are much preferred. Some species naturally produce whorls, and in cases where the specie is naturally symmetrical, like a blue spruce or Auracarias, for example, you respect that look. In most other cases, like Japanese Maples, this inherent whorl pattern can and should be reduced or eliminated in the big picture for a more pleasing look.
TRUNK TO BRANCH SIZE RATIO
Simply put, the thickness or length of a branch should not "compete" with the trunk. The trunk is king, The ratio may be hard to target, but generally a branch should be no more than half the diameter of the trunk where they meet and depart. Length is harder to pinpoint. The closer you get to the top of the tree, the less dominant a branch should be. I frequently see White Birches where 3/4 of the way up, a branch emerges just way too thick and long. While this attribute in people might well excite their friends, once you start noticing it in trees, it will gnaw at you like a stain on a necktie, and may be where your eye goes first. In the case of a co-dominant leader, the trunk is nearly equally split in two, either from pruning an existing trunk to become two trunks, or from a branch getting a little too cocky and showing up the boss. More often than not, one leader is better than two. Japanese Maples are frequently trained to have two leaders primarily to increase their real or perceived width.
PROMOTING HORIZONTAL BRANCHING
Most trees look better and are stronger with a more horizontal rather than vertical branching pattern. Certain species, such as White Birches, tend to be more vertical. Even in these trees, doing what you can to enhance a more horizontal pattern is a good thing.
ELIMINATE OVERLY-STRAIGHT BRANCHING
The most interesting trees, aside from super-straight species like Coast Redwoods, have branches that curve or twist, a little or a lot. Valley oaks are most notable for this curvy growth pattern. Branches that keep going straight for a long distance tend to indicate under- or over-pruning, and it's just not very interesting. Proper pruning will promote some curvature, as well as good taper, strength and ramification. And vertical water spouts/sprouts, so often mentioned in my posts, are to be avoided at all costs once they get bigger than about a pencil.
BALANCE FOLIAGE DENSITY
This is a really hard ratio to pinpoint. It can depend on the specie, age, size, or preference. Essentially, you want enough foliage distributed throughout the tree, not just at the very outside, to avoid large voids, but also to allow light and air to penetrate. Japanese Maples are known for having a delicate, airy texture, with the branching being a large part of the appeal. Waterfall-type maples generally have more dense foliage, especially at the edges. Even in those cases where they look great, it would be better for the tree to be opened up a bit and retain some inner branching.
AVOID BLUNT BRANCH TIPS
Nothing is more obvious in pruning than when someone cuts the end of a branch tip off so that it's larger than about the thickness of a pencil, and in smaller or more delicate trees, less than that, perhaps 1/8 or 3/16". Now, during restorative pruning, some of this is unavoidable, but it's better to make it a long-term goal to keep all the branch tips tiny. FYI, cutting the tip off a branch is called a "heading cut". Some pruning guides discourage heading cuts, but they're not bad in all cases, and quite beneficial or even necessary in some cases. You just have to know when.
AVOID POLLARDING, TOPPING, LIONTAILING, MURDER
OK. In case you haven't caught my other articles, I frequently mention "Crape Murder". You need to have a good understanding of this, or you really won't understand good pruning at all. What this term refers to is when the branches are cut off very bluntly at the very outside, with the additional removal of most inner secondary branches. In the spring following this dastardly treatment, the tips of each of the blunt branches explode into multiple, up to a dozen or more, mostly vertical shoots that grow so quickly, long and skinny, that they can't support the weight of the coming flowers or even their own wood and foliage, and they flop over like a sad wet green and magenta noodle. This process is repeated year after year, and each year the tree looks a bit worse until it's utterly hideous. And the removal of all the inner branches over time left nothing to take over in case you want to remove some of these stocky branches. People prune other trees this way, but it's especially common in Crape Myrtles and Mulberry trees. Whatever convinced someone to prune this way, it's never a good idea and can't be justified in the long term. Liontailing refers to removing all inner branching and foliage so that all of it's on the very outside. Not good. Now, once you have this problem with your trees, it'a long process to repair with very diligent, thoughtful pruning that itself won't look great for a few years, but it's like heart surgery, cleaning your garage, or repainting a car. It gets a bit uglier before it gets better. At this point you can't take a conservative approach, and pruning and pinching several times per year is required to get things back on track until it recovers. Luckily, Crape Myrtles, Mulberries, and other vigorous trees that people torment this way are great at recovering from aggressive rehabilitation, even to the point where some trees are cut down to the ground to start all over.
APPROPRIATE THINNING
Thinning is the most common cut. You take it a branch entirely or back to a point where a lateral branch will take its place. Thinning will remove mass if there's too much, or eliminate crossing, rubbing, oddly-directed or parallel branches. If you're removing a portion of a branch back to a lateral/descendant branch, then that branch that becomes the new tip should be at least 1/3 the diameter of that you cut off at that point. This will help keep taper appropriate, and also vigor in a branch that's too small may not be enough to sustain the growth, or the point of cutoff actually could explode in a pollarding style and then you have a we're lot of little branches to deal with. Whenever you make a thinning cut, or heading cut for that matter, new growth will tend to occur either from that point or further inside the tree, usually some of each.
LEAVE TEMPORARY BRANCHES
Some of the most important branches are the ones that are temporary. Technically, almost all branches are temporary, until new ones emerge and develop and older ones die or lose their importance. In many cases, we knowingly let branches stick around just long enough to do a task, knowing all the while that they're doomed within a year or two. Most notably, a branch may be needed lower on a parent branch to help thicken the parent in and around that point. But if we don't like it, we cut it off when it gets to about 1/4", and nobody realizes was there or removed. But if tree branch grows into something we like, we can just leave it. We may not particularly like the look of a tempest branch, but the long-term benefit may outweigh the immediate need for beauty.
BRANCH ORIGINATION ANGLE
Branches may come out of a trunk at almost any angle. They usually come out pretty perpendicular in a left/right orientation, and usually anywhere from 90 degrees (straight out horizontal) to nearly vertical. The closer to vertical it is, the weaker it will be, since the nearly parallel wood to the trunk can split easily. It's best to have an angle at least 30 degrees from vertical, and 45 is better. 90 is a bit much to ask for in certain trees. Many, if not most conifers have more horizontal branching. Though you can't do a lot to determine the angle a branch comes out, you can decide which branch among others close together has the best properties, and remove others that may be a problem. For pruning purposes, you can nudge the branch in a certain direction over time, but the origination angle is pretty well set in wood. Some trees that tend to naturally have more vertical branching, like European white birches, maybe the best you can do is just go for the branches that have a few degrees difference, provided all other deciding factors are equal. Bark inclusion is also a consideration. I'll go into that in another post, or you can research that subject on your own.
CHANGE THE SIZE OR SHAPE
You'll often be told that you shouldn't try to limit the size of a tree, but plant a tree that fits the space. That's mostly true, but you know we all prefer to pick a tree we like and live with the consequences. This happens more with shrubs than trees, so we shear them or cut them back so they don't rub against she house, etc. Trees will tolerate some of this, though shearing isn't usually practical or pretty. So then what? Well, you can control the size to a good degree, at least until it gets old. Then it becomes a lot harder and you should give up. If there's something that can be fixed, great. If not, don't butcher it, cut it down if it's a problem. But controlling the size has to start early in its life, or you'll end up with all sorts of proportionality and growth pattern problems. You simply can't wait until a tree is 20 years old, that you want to hold it to that size forever. There may be some exceptions to this, but it's not a good plan.
More to come............
ISA standards are proudly followed by the best pruners and arborists, but there's a lot more to it than that. In some cases, you have to break the rules for the greater good. Knowing when to do this is an art. Since most pruners see it as a job and not an art, they usually fall short of the best results, usually by a large margin. It sometimes can be worse if a client dictates that they want things a certain way, or want a more conservative or aggressive approach than what is really the best long-term need
As far as what I strive for in pruning a tree perfectly over the long term, these are the goals:
HIDE THE EVIDENCE
The ultimate goal of any pruning undertaking should be to conceal all evidence that pruning ever took place. Overcoming this paradox takes great long-term planning. I once saw a Beech tree at a show that was renowned for its great balance and taper and lack of visible scars. It was as flawless as Grace Kelly. The tree was probably about 2 feet tall and at least 20 or 30 years old. This nearly perfect, natural-looking tiny tree was the result of meticulous, frequent, strategic pruning. Removing or pinching back a branch at just the right time will reduce or eliminate obvious scarring. Ideally, branches should be cut when they're small enough to heal/seal over within 2 or 3 years, or at least a relatively short time. Any branches over about 1-1/2" in diameter will leave scarring for years, maybe forever. However, if you cut back or remove branches too early, this can reduce tapering and induce sparse branching. This timing and balance is difficult for most pruners to achieve or even understand.
STRONG, TAPERED TRUNK
A thick, tapered trunk will reveal some history, strength and permanence. The trunk by virtue of its texture, shape and bark may also be the most interesting feature a tree has to offer. Careful long-term planning and pruning is needed to achieve a terrific trunk. Just like how our torsos are more important than our arms and legs. But thick isn't necessarily good for us. I have a ratio in mind, of between 20-to-1 and 30-to-1, of the height of the tree in relation to its trunk diameter near the base, tapering to zero at the top. This is good taper. Very young trees won't have this ratio unless you work really hard at it, but mature trees can almost all achieve this with the exception of some naturally stubborn skinny species. But even those species can be optimized. Older trees take on a ratio that may be more like 10-1 or less, which is really solid.
LACK OF DEATH, DISEASE, DAMAGE AND DANGER
Wouldn't we all like this? For various reasons, all trees have branches that just die. Some we can prevent, others we can't. Some branches get diseased or damaged. Some pose an imminent danger of breaking or otherwise causing destruction. We need to remove these as soon as possible. If we don't, the wind and gravity might do it for us, or disease can spread the branch itself. Removing death, damage, danger and disease should be the first step each time you prune. For whatever reason, real or perceived, a living branch can't exist if there's a dead one in the way. Removing dead wood tends to invigorate a tree.
WELL-DISTRIBUTED, TAPERING BRANCHES
This is where almost everyone misses the mark. Too often, you see a whole bunch of branches emerge from the same point about 6 to 8 feet off the ground, grow with inadequate tapering, proportion and angle, bypass important intermediate branches (ramification), and finish with a burst of most of the branches and foliage at the outer edges. Frequent, proper pruning will promote better distribution and balance, creating a far better-looking and healthier tree. Having this ramification is also important so that there is a replacement branch fairly close by in case another branch dies or otherwise has to go, thus reducing bare areas like in Charlie Brown's Xmas tree. Snoopy and Linus can't fix that problem. Only time and spiffy actions can, best case.
AVOIDING WHORLS AND REDUNDANCY
Whenever you see whorls (more than one branch coming out of the trunk or another branch in one spot), it's redundant. A trunk or branch should extend a bit before another branch emerges. Whorls create ugly bulges and eliminate attractive, staggered branching patterns that are much preferred. Some species naturally produce whorls, and in cases where the specie is naturally symmetrical, like a blue spruce or Auracarias, for example, you respect that look. In most other cases, like Japanese Maples, this inherent whorl pattern can and should be reduced or eliminated in the big picture for a more pleasing look.
TRUNK TO BRANCH SIZE RATIO
Simply put, the thickness or length of a branch should not "compete" with the trunk. The trunk is king, The ratio may be hard to target, but generally a branch should be no more than half the diameter of the trunk where they meet and depart. Length is harder to pinpoint. The closer you get to the top of the tree, the less dominant a branch should be. I frequently see White Birches where 3/4 of the way up, a branch emerges just way too thick and long. While this attribute in people might well excite their friends, once you start noticing it in trees, it will gnaw at you like a stain on a necktie, and may be where your eye goes first. In the case of a co-dominant leader, the trunk is nearly equally split in two, either from pruning an existing trunk to become two trunks, or from a branch getting a little too cocky and showing up the boss. More often than not, one leader is better than two. Japanese Maples are frequently trained to have two leaders primarily to increase their real or perceived width.
PROMOTING HORIZONTAL BRANCHING
Most trees look better and are stronger with a more horizontal rather than vertical branching pattern. Certain species, such as White Birches, tend to be more vertical. Even in these trees, doing what you can to enhance a more horizontal pattern is a good thing.
ELIMINATE OVERLY-STRAIGHT BRANCHING
The most interesting trees, aside from super-straight species like Coast Redwoods, have branches that curve or twist, a little or a lot. Valley oaks are most notable for this curvy growth pattern. Branches that keep going straight for a long distance tend to indicate under- or over-pruning, and it's just not very interesting. Proper pruning will promote some curvature, as well as good taper, strength and ramification. And vertical water spouts/sprouts, so often mentioned in my posts, are to be avoided at all costs once they get bigger than about a pencil.
BALANCE FOLIAGE DENSITY
This is a really hard ratio to pinpoint. It can depend on the specie, age, size, or preference. Essentially, you want enough foliage distributed throughout the tree, not just at the very outside, to avoid large voids, but also to allow light and air to penetrate. Japanese Maples are known for having a delicate, airy texture, with the branching being a large part of the appeal. Waterfall-type maples generally have more dense foliage, especially at the edges. Even in those cases where they look great, it would be better for the tree to be opened up a bit and retain some inner branching.
AVOID BLUNT BRANCH TIPS
Nothing is more obvious in pruning than when someone cuts the end of a branch tip off so that it's larger than about the thickness of a pencil, and in smaller or more delicate trees, less than that, perhaps 1/8 or 3/16". Now, during restorative pruning, some of this is unavoidable, but it's better to make it a long-term goal to keep all the branch tips tiny. FYI, cutting the tip off a branch is called a "heading cut". Some pruning guides discourage heading cuts, but they're not bad in all cases, and quite beneficial or even necessary in some cases. You just have to know when.
AVOID POLLARDING, TOPPING, LIONTAILING, MURDER
OK. In case you haven't caught my other articles, I frequently mention "Crape Murder". You need to have a good understanding of this, or you really won't understand good pruning at all. What this term refers to is when the branches are cut off very bluntly at the very outside, with the additional removal of most inner secondary branches. In the spring following this dastardly treatment, the tips of each of the blunt branches explode into multiple, up to a dozen or more, mostly vertical shoots that grow so quickly, long and skinny, that they can't support the weight of the coming flowers or even their own wood and foliage, and they flop over like a sad wet green and magenta noodle. This process is repeated year after year, and each year the tree looks a bit worse until it's utterly hideous. And the removal of all the inner branches over time left nothing to take over in case you want to remove some of these stocky branches. People prune other trees this way, but it's especially common in Crape Myrtles and Mulberry trees. Whatever convinced someone to prune this way, it's never a good idea and can't be justified in the long term. Liontailing refers to removing all inner branching and foliage so that all of it's on the very outside. Not good. Now, once you have this problem with your trees, it'a long process to repair with very diligent, thoughtful pruning that itself won't look great for a few years, but it's like heart surgery, cleaning your garage, or repainting a car. It gets a bit uglier before it gets better. At this point you can't take a conservative approach, and pruning and pinching several times per year is required to get things back on track until it recovers. Luckily, Crape Myrtles, Mulberries, and other vigorous trees that people torment this way are great at recovering from aggressive rehabilitation, even to the point where some trees are cut down to the ground to start all over.
APPROPRIATE THINNING
Thinning is the most common cut. You take it a branch entirely or back to a point where a lateral branch will take its place. Thinning will remove mass if there's too much, or eliminate crossing, rubbing, oddly-directed or parallel branches. If you're removing a portion of a branch back to a lateral/descendant branch, then that branch that becomes the new tip should be at least 1/3 the diameter of that you cut off at that point. This will help keep taper appropriate, and also vigor in a branch that's too small may not be enough to sustain the growth, or the point of cutoff actually could explode in a pollarding style and then you have a we're lot of little branches to deal with. Whenever you make a thinning cut, or heading cut for that matter, new growth will tend to occur either from that point or further inside the tree, usually some of each.
LEAVE TEMPORARY BRANCHES
Some of the most important branches are the ones that are temporary. Technically, almost all branches are temporary, until new ones emerge and develop and older ones die or lose their importance. In many cases, we knowingly let branches stick around just long enough to do a task, knowing all the while that they're doomed within a year or two. Most notably, a branch may be needed lower on a parent branch to help thicken the parent in and around that point. But if we don't like it, we cut it off when it gets to about 1/4", and nobody realizes was there or removed. But if tree branch grows into something we like, we can just leave it. We may not particularly like the look of a tempest branch, but the long-term benefit may outweigh the immediate need for beauty.
BRANCH ORIGINATION ANGLE
Branches may come out of a trunk at almost any angle. They usually come out pretty perpendicular in a left/right orientation, and usually anywhere from 90 degrees (straight out horizontal) to nearly vertical. The closer to vertical it is, the weaker it will be, since the nearly parallel wood to the trunk can split easily. It's best to have an angle at least 30 degrees from vertical, and 45 is better. 90 is a bit much to ask for in certain trees. Many, if not most conifers have more horizontal branching. Though you can't do a lot to determine the angle a branch comes out, you can decide which branch among others close together has the best properties, and remove others that may be a problem. For pruning purposes, you can nudge the branch in a certain direction over time, but the origination angle is pretty well set in wood. Some trees that tend to naturally have more vertical branching, like European white birches, maybe the best you can do is just go for the branches that have a few degrees difference, provided all other deciding factors are equal. Bark inclusion is also a consideration. I'll go into that in another post, or you can research that subject on your own.
CHANGE THE SIZE OR SHAPE
You'll often be told that you shouldn't try to limit the size of a tree, but plant a tree that fits the space. That's mostly true, but you know we all prefer to pick a tree we like and live with the consequences. This happens more with shrubs than trees, so we shear them or cut them back so they don't rub against she house, etc. Trees will tolerate some of this, though shearing isn't usually practical or pretty. So then what? Well, you can control the size to a good degree, at least until it gets old. Then it becomes a lot harder and you should give up. If there's something that can be fixed, great. If not, don't butcher it, cut it down if it's a problem. But controlling the size has to start early in its life, or you'll end up with all sorts of proportionality and growth pattern problems. You simply can't wait until a tree is 20 years old, that you want to hold it to that size forever. There may be some exceptions to this, but it's not a good plan.
More to come............
Friday, August 14, 2015
I Like Big Fat Bottoms and Size Matters.
Who doesn't like big bottoms on trees? If Kim Kardashian were a sexy sycamore, she would be awesome. If Nicky Minaj were an Ironbark Eucalyptus, she would be spectacular but sassy. If Taylor Swift were a tree, she might be a weeping golden willow. She's pretty slender, and she would also probably write about other trees done wrong.
The point is, trees should have substantial junk in the trunk in relation to their overall bulk and height. Branches should be smaller than the trunk at the point they connect, and there are certain ratios that would be perfect for each tree.
When trees come home to live with you from the nursery, they're too skinny. The growers encourage this overly-lanky development so they can get as much height as possible quickly, like the tree is going out for the NBA. Trees look their best when they get some girth, have some permanence, can withstand a strong wind, have bark that's as much a feature as the leaves or flowers, and actually look....like a tree.
This is one thing that's really important for most bonsai. They actually have the proportions of mature trees, even though they're only 18 inches tall, give or take. I'm told that the ultimate goal of girth for a bonsai is an inch of trunk diameter for each 6 or 7 inches in height. I would say that for most yard trees, one foot of trunk base diameter for every 10 to 20 feet in height is good. Once trees get to be 80 or 100 years old, the diameter ratio is getting up there and looking like a tree really wants to look.
Pay attention to girth and you'll be much more impressed. Size matters. Do what you can to fatten up your trees. I know how to do this. I'm good at fattening myself up too.
Therapist, Not THE RAPIST, for Your Trees
Therapist, not The Rapist. Sometimes having auto spell correction go awry can get people all panicky. Isn't it funny that the two terms are complete opposites? Your trees all need therapy. Think of me as a tree therapist. If something isn't right, I'll just cut it off and that will be the end of that problem. If you want drugs for your trees, call someone else. I only deal with surgery and moral support. Most people actually do kinda rape your trees, albeit unwittingly, and you don't want that.
Most people really don't know what it takes to help trees be their best. They usually don't pick the right trees for the ongoing relationship. Then, they neglect them or completely mismanage them until they see things aren't right. Imagine if their family members were so abused.
At that point, they usually hack at the tree themselves with little education or proper equipment or get someone equally or even more unqualified and less attached to hack it up for them. This usually makes things worse. It can take several to many years to overcome a single hacking festival. I figure for every poor pruning job, there's at least 2 years needed to recover once the trauma ends. 3 or 4 years of mistreatment means once it gets on the right track, it might be 5 to 10 years before it can look good again. And maybe never if it was really screwed up.
Some people think trees can take perfect care of themselves, but this isn't true and I'll explain why in a future post. On the other hand, bad pruning is worse than no pruning at all. Even worse, some people hire arborists to do the needed work. Most arborists are good at diagnosing problems and fixing them to an extent. But they usually aren't very good at making trees look great. They're more like a mechanic working on your transmission, when what you need is someone who has the visual skills and finesse of someone who paints the car. Or like a proctologist when mostly what you need is a plastic surgeon.
That's where I come in. I do what they call aesthetic pruning. This is what you apply to pretty much every tree for which the purpose is to look good and be healthy, not to make juice or sweet, crunchy nuts for you.
You don't just prune a tree every few years and expect it to look great. The best trees are maintained throughout most of the year. Ultimately this doesn't take much longer, and can save time in the long run. Trees that are maintained properly will avoid losing branches or toppling in a big storm. And managing a tree while it's 20 feet tall rather than waiting until it's 50 makes everything much better and safer.
Most people really don't know what it takes to help trees be their best. They usually don't pick the right trees for the ongoing relationship. Then, they neglect them or completely mismanage them until they see things aren't right. Imagine if their family members were so abused.
At that point, they usually hack at the tree themselves with little education or proper equipment or get someone equally or even more unqualified and less attached to hack it up for them. This usually makes things worse. It can take several to many years to overcome a single hacking festival. I figure for every poor pruning job, there's at least 2 years needed to recover once the trauma ends. 3 or 4 years of mistreatment means once it gets on the right track, it might be 5 to 10 years before it can look good again. And maybe never if it was really screwed up.
Some people think trees can take perfect care of themselves, but this isn't true and I'll explain why in a future post. On the other hand, bad pruning is worse than no pruning at all. Even worse, some people hire arborists to do the needed work. Most arborists are good at diagnosing problems and fixing them to an extent. But they usually aren't very good at making trees look great. They're more like a mechanic working on your transmission, when what you need is someone who has the visual skills and finesse of someone who paints the car. Or like a proctologist when mostly what you need is a plastic surgeon.
That's where I come in. I do what they call aesthetic pruning. This is what you apply to pretty much every tree for which the purpose is to look good and be healthy, not to make juice or sweet, crunchy nuts for you.
You don't just prune a tree every few years and expect it to look great. The best trees are maintained throughout most of the year. Ultimately this doesn't take much longer, and can save time in the long run. Trees that are maintained properly will avoid losing branches or toppling in a big storm. And managing a tree while it's 20 feet tall rather than waiting until it's 50 makes everything much better and safer.
Spreading the TreeDawg Seed
Spreading my seed is something I've always wanted to do. Fun. However, I spend a lot more time dealing with the established seeds of others.
Trees are one of my biggest passions. Collecting, pruning, studying and hugging. I have some definite goals with my own growing collection of trees, and some are yet to be determined.
In addition, I manage and repair and improve trees for others but avoid hugging them. It pains me to see how the vast majority of trees are badly managed even when most people think things are fine or they're just unaware. I aim to make everyone's trees as spectacular as even a mundane tree can be. Even if they look bad now, there's a good chance they can be greatly improved.
My plan for this blog is to discuss all things about trees as they come about, with a big focus on learning about tree species and properly managing what we have. If you hang in there with me, you can learn to appreciate trees much more than you do now. If you don't appreciate trees now, well, then, life holds little hope for you. Trees are your best friends and you don't even realize it.
Please forgive my punnery and use of unorthadox saucy language for my tree lovin' articles. I assure you it's really harmless. Just bear with me and you won't feel a thing.
Trees are one of my biggest passions. Collecting, pruning, studying and hugging. I have some definite goals with my own growing collection of trees, and some are yet to be determined.
In addition, I manage and repair and improve trees for others but avoid hugging them. It pains me to see how the vast majority of trees are badly managed even when most people think things are fine or they're just unaware. I aim to make everyone's trees as spectacular as even a mundane tree can be. Even if they look bad now, there's a good chance they can be greatly improved.
My plan for this blog is to discuss all things about trees as they come about, with a big focus on learning about tree species and properly managing what we have. If you hang in there with me, you can learn to appreciate trees much more than you do now. If you don't appreciate trees now, well, then, life holds little hope for you. Trees are your best friends and you don't even realize it.
Please forgive my punnery and use of unorthadox saucy language for my tree lovin' articles. I assure you it's really harmless. Just bear with me and you won't feel a thing.
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