Outdoor Winter Maintenance - Tree Pruning
Date: January 4, 2024
Your home’s curb appeal starts with a well-manicured lawn, which includes trees and shrubs. Lawn mowing may end when the growing season is over, but that is when pruning should begin.
Pruning at the wrong time is one of the biggest pruning mistakes. The best time to prune a tree varies, but it is usually during winter or early spring while the tree is dormant. Trees that receive the appropriate pruning while young require less corrective pruning as they mature.
Types of pruning:
· Cleaning – removal of dead, dying, diseased, weakly attached, or broken branches.
· Raising – removing the lower branches from a tree to provide clearance.
· Reduction – reducing the size of a tree while maintaining the tree’s form and structure, often for utility line clearance. Topping will also reduce the size of a tree, but it is perhaps the most harmful tree pruning practice known.
· Reducing density – thinning, performed to promote interior foliage development.
You should remove:
• Branches that are growing across each other or inward toward the trunk
• Branches that are growing at an angle of thirty degrees or less relative to the trunk or at a downward angle
• Low branches once they reach about an inch in diameter
• Suckers (long shoots that grow out of the base of a tree or from its roots)
• Water sprouts (shoots growing straight up from the main branches of shrubs and trees)
When pruning, the basic rule of thumb is less is more. Don’t prune recklessly; think about what you’re pruning BEFORE you cut.
How to prune:
• Prune side branches back to the main branch or trunk.
• Prune larger branches back to where a smaller branch emerges from the branch you are pruning.
• Prune smaller branches back to an outward-facing bud or intersecting branch.
• Use a pruning saw or bow saw to cut any branch over 1-1/2 inches in diameter.
• NEVER seal pruning cuts with tree paint.
• Sterilize your pruning equipment with rubbing alcohol before and after pruning to kill any disease-causing microbes.
Consult with a local arborist for specific questions.