Pruning: Goldilocks Style and Father Time

The best pruning takes place when you prune JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT.  Not too much or too little.

I've had awkward situations with customers and also with friends while helping them prune their trees.  They say either "better stop there", thinking that proper, meticulous, methodical winter pruning is wreaking havoc,  or "take more off" so that it's immediately smaller or thinner, or assumed that taking more off now saves effort in future seasons.

The fact is, almost nobody has managed their trees properly, regardless of how much they've learned or how many trees they look at or who they hired to do the work.  I would estimate that well over 95% of people doing tree trimming, either as a job, a career, or as a DIY or hobby project, are doing it completely wrong.  And once a tree is mismanaged, it only tends to get worse every season.  It's heartbreaking if you really love trees.  And I hate to say it, but the vast majority of people are clueless about what constitutes great pruning other than the most basic rules that don't include the finer points .  Don't look to arborists or tree surgeons or guys that just drive around with a truck, a chain saw and a ladder.  These guys hardly ever get it right.

Think of it this way.  If you get a bad cut on your finger, likely to get infected, leaving it alone would be like not pruning a tree at all.  Cleaning it or putting a Band-Aid on it would be like pruning just a little bit, but not enough.  It needs more.  Cutting off your hand would be like over-pruning.  A bit drastic.  Well, your hand isn't gonna grow back.  A tree, on the other hand, has the potential to grow back to what it should be provided there's proper management forever after, and if you let Father Time do his thing.  However, in many cases, things will never be right, so you either compromise or cut the tree down.

There are certainly cases where taking more off than you might like is needed..  I'll have a posting about Crape Murder and how to solve it, but to make a point here, if your trees have ugly knobs, knuckles, knots, whatever you want to call them, the solution is to remove them and get them started in the right direction, and provided the branches are less than about 2" in diameter, in a few years the tree may actually look normal.  BUT ONLY IF NEARLY PERFECT MANAGEMENT TAKES PLACE.  The actual process may appear drastic, but it's the only way, just like surgery is drastic but can save your life.

If you really want to do it right, have a meeting with the tree trimmer and ask what they're gonna do, exactly why they're gonna do it, and what the results will be now and in future seasons.  Ask them what's the problem to begin with that needs correcting.  They should be able to justify EVERY SINGLE CUT.  Don't let them fool you with keywords and jargon you don't understand.  You should be clear on what's happening.  If they don't make sense, don't hire them.

One really hard thing to understand is that pruning properly one year will mean less pruning in future seasons.  If you spend 3 hours on a tree in a critical year, you only have to spend a fraction of that in each future year.  Once again with Crape Myrtles, you could spend 2 or 3 hours cutting off all the little branches every year and have a really ugly tree for most of the year, or spend about 3 hours in a critical season, maybe another hour or two in the subsequent months, and then each year after that should be much less work, and the tree will look good even during the winter .  Especially if you let the tree grow to its natural height.  If you want to keep it down just a bit, that's gonna take some extra time each year, and not really possible forever unless you want it to be a lollipop.  Of course, if the tree needs a lot of work, the major repairs will need to be done incrementally over a few years   Making an abused or neglected tree look great may take up to 10 years or more, and you may have to live with a "pretty good" tree, not a great one.  But at least not a terrible one. 

Once someone who really knows their stuff gives you an education, you'll never see trees the same way again, and you'll start noticing how badly managed most are.  Have them point out in any given tree how it could be better.

Opinions, however, can be bizarre.  Some people think that clunky, choppy trees with big, swollen, disproportionate sections, vertical shoots and floppy flowers look good.  But then some people thought striped polyester disco jump suits, avocado green refrigerators and first-generation microwave cardboard pizzas were just terrific.

So, Goldilocks, though she was transient and breaking into homes, had it right with the goal of balance.

You too can be a TreeDawg Knight.

Keep Your Hands Off: What NOT to do When Pruning Trees

Every article you read about pruning tells you the same things, like 3-step cuts, leaving branch collars, cutting out crossing branches, removing co-dominant leaders, don't cut more than 1/4 or 1/3, don't cut power lines, your finger or your little brother's finger, don't poke your eye out, etc.  I aim to tell you about things they DON'T tell you.

The ultimate goal with pruning just about any tree is to make it look like it was NEVER pruned, but rather magically grew with proper balance, branching, shape and taper, all without human intervention, all the while looking informal and not like a lollipop or a mushroom.  This achievement of a tree following the rules actually is quite rare in nature, and very, very few people have the skills to make this happen.  Almost every tree you'll ever see has issues, no matter who pruned it or how frequently or infrequently.  Bonsai experts are great at getting this look, ironically with the challenges of keeping the tree less than two feet tall.  Very few tree surgeons, arborists, "expert" pruners or guys that advertise on Craigslist get it just right, usually not even remotely right.  The best situation I come across is when I get a tree that's only a few years old that's been almost untouched, granted the growers usually already start it off on the wrong foot.  They earlier I get my hands on it, the easier I can train it to look great and stay healthy.  Any other condition usually means repairing botched earlier jobs, and a great-looking tree may take years of diligent pruning, but likely will never be close to perfect.

So here are the things almost nobody tells you about good pruning.  You should NOT do these:

1.  ATTAIN WHORLS & KNOBS.  A whorl is a situation when there are more than two branches in one union, or more than one branch coming directly out of the trunk at one point.  With a few exceptions where trees have a natural branching pattern of 3 branches that's hard to overcome, like some conifers, Chinese Pistache, Japanese Maples to a degree, etc., you should strive to have no more than 2 tree members in one spot.  Each joint should look like a peace sign you make with your fingers, more or less.  Plus you look really groovy.  A far worse scenario involves leaving knobs or knuckles at the end of a branch.  This is the result of repeatedly pruning the tip in the same spot, which led to these ugly monstrosities.  They always look terrible and can only be corrected by cutting lower down the branch, which is problematic except in the most vigorous trees.  People have commonly, peculiarly, and horribly mistakenly, decided to do this most frequently with Mulberry trees and Crape Myrtles, and it's a real crime.  Unfortunately, once a whorl is mature, it's usually better to leave it than remove it, since removal will probably be a permanent, obvious blemish, especially if over 2" in diameter.  Sometimes, the decision to remove one or more of the branches is obvious, but often takes great thought.  If there's one of several branches on the inside, it's usually the best one to take out, so the scar will be hidden and it will open up the canopy.  Liontailing is also to be avoided, where all smaller branches are removed from a larger branch except at the very tip.  Not at all sensible.  Also, take a look at almost every tree you pass by.  You'll see almost without exception, one or more branches coming out of the trunk about 6' off the ground.  This is usually done so that people can walk under them, and that's ok, though not always necessary.  Problem is, there's almost always more than one branch coming out in the same spot.
This is a clear no-no, and it creates a giant bulge.  The opposing branches should be staggered and separated by a discernable distance which varies by the size of the tree, thus avoiding various whorls or a huge swollen lump in that section of the tree.  And branches on the same side of the tree should be spaced appropriately, which will also vary.  It takes a keen eye to determine the right distance apart.  Nature determines much of that by node spacing.

2.  LEAVING STRAIGHT, UNTAPERED BRANCHES.  Branches in most trees naturally tend to taper noticeably, and usually don't keep going straight, but either curve or branch off in a slight direction, or divide into two or more smaller branches..  A lack of taper doesn't look right, but it also means the branch is probably too heavy at the end, and probaby too big in relation to the scale of the trunk or the overall tree.  This is common where someone either removed most of the secondary branches from the larger branch, or just let it grow too long, possibly while cutting some of the upper trunk.  Since growth is more vigorous at the tip, it lets girth accumulate faster toward the tip.  There's no exact formula, but a guideline is to avoid a branch being more than half the diameter of the trunk at the point of attachment.  Taking care of all this takes good diligence and ability to figure out how the tree is likely to grow.  Pay attention to oak trees in the wild.  They have curving, tapering branches and usually no whorls, and look fantastic.  They would l look even better if they were meticulously pruned all their lives.

3.  INFREQUENT PRUNING
The best scenario is to do more minor pruning more often, several times per year at crucial points, rather than once every year or every few years.  It shouldn't end up being a lot more work in the end, because every cut you make should help avoid multiple problems later.  More later....

4.  PRUNING THE WRONG TIME OF YEAR
You'll find all sorts of opinions on when to prune this or that.  It's seemingly quite complicated, and opinions on all sides are somewhat valid, even at opposite points of view .  After extensive research, I determined the only way to figure it out is to look at each specie separately, use a bunch of logic and experience, and determine the actual objective for each pruning session.  I'll have another post dedicated to all the specifics, which should clear all the confusion.  In any case, probably the worst times to prune are between September and late November/early December, but this can vary with climate, specie, and the objective at hand.   More later.....