Winter is a great time to get your landscape trees pruned and ready for the next growing season. With the tips detailed below, you will have beautiful, healthy trees for a lifetime.
Step 1: Safety First.
If you are working on a ladder, be sure to have help to prevent a fall.
Wear personal protective equipment: safety glasses, gloves, boots, hardhat, chaps for chainsaws
Be sure you are comfortable with all the equipment you will be using.
Always be sure to use sharp tools. This makes for a nice clean cut and makes your job easier.
Step 2: Making the Cut
Your best bet is to cut at a "Y" Follow a branch tip back to where it connects to limb or the limb connects to the main trunk. This is the best location to cut. Trimming just the tip off (heading back) can encourage the tree to rebound causing unsightly vertical shoots.
Be sure not to cut too deep into the "Y" or too close to the main trunk. This will damage the tree and alter the healing process. However, leaving stubs that stick out is unsightly, dangerous, and also alters the healing process. See the above image for a great illustration of where to cut.
Step 3: The 3 D's
Always start by removing Dead, Damaged, and Diseased limbs first.
These limbs are not beneficial to the whole tree's health and need to be removed to avoid killing the tree in the future and to reduce the chance of a dead limb breaking out during a storm and hurting someone or causing damage.
Step 4: Remove Crossing Branches
Closely crossing branches can rub on each other creating open wounds that may turn into a dead, damaged, or diseased limb in the future.
Step 5: Prune for Balance
Remove any limbs that are out of place and throwing your trees balance and symmetry off. If you are unsure if a limb is needed or not, have a friend hold it out of the way to better visualize before making the cut. Never remove more than 1/3 of the limbs in a growing season.
Helpful Hint!
Trees do best if left to grow to their biological sizes; reducing a tree's size creates pruning nightmares down the road when they rebound like crazy. If you need to reduce the size of the overall tree, it is probably not right for the space. Consider relocating it or planting one better suited for the space.
Happy Pruning!
