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How to Prune a Tree: 8 Tips to Remember
When it comes to pruning trees, you can hire a tree pruning service to do the job, or you can actually do it yourself. Here are a few tips to help you in your tree pruning.
Pruning your backyard trees is something every homeowner should do regularly for your family and your property's safety, to preserve the tree's health, and for aesthetic purposes. For large tree pruning which would require the use of a heavy saw or chain saw, it is advised that you call in a tree pruning contractor and have him do the job for you.
For trees that are of average size and only requires minimal pruning however, tree pruning is actually a job that you can tackle yourself given the right materials and instructions. All you would need are pruning shears and a pruning saw. Here are 8 tips that can help you in your tree pruning:
- Start by cutting off decayed limbs and branches that are structurally weak. These are those limbs that seem dead and those bearing wilted or distressed leaves.
- Make cuts outside the branch collar but do not completely flush to the trunk to allow viable growing branch bark and have better wound closure.
- For newly grown trees, leave the useful limbs untouched and just prune to form for the first two to three years.
- Some trees have forked trunks that can lead to different problems such as inferior form and health. Prune forked trunks to one dominate trunk.
- All stable branches should be pruned to the appropriate first branch height usually 8 feet upon maturity.
- After the first couple of years, a tree tends to grow rapidly. At this stage, try to eliminate branches that start to space out about 12 to 18 inches.
- To be able to prune a tree effectively, always remove decayed branches while keeping the wood stem intact. A general rule applied to tree pruning is to always cut on the branch side of the stem collar.
- Trees heal pruning wounds on their own so do not put wound dressing to seal cuts.
When you go by these simple steps on how to prune a tree, you will be sure to produce and maintain strong, healthy, and attractive trees.