Trees are amazing, they have so many positive benefits. For instance, they provide shade in the summer, reduce your home energy bill, reduce soil erosion, reduce greenhouse gas emissions/pollution, cleans the air, and so much more. All these many benefits make it important to properly take care of your trees and make sure they are as healthy as possible. One of the ways you can do this is with tree pruning. However, most homeowners are not properly skilled or trained to prune trees and this results in mistakes happening. Our team at Five Star Tree Services has gathered all the information you need to know about tree pruning, its benefits, and some mistakes to avoid.
What Tree Pruning Is
This is actually the most common form of tree maintenance and is one of the most important things you can do for your tree. Tree pruning is a great way to maintain a certain aesthetic, structural integrity, and health. It promotes growth of new branches and also encourages root growth as well. But if a tree is pruned wrong, this can have long-term damages. This is why it should only be performed by professionals who have the proper tools and knowledge of trees. In short, tree pruning is the act of removing dead, damaged, or diseased branches off of a tree so that new growth can be promoted.
Tree Pruning Benefits
Hazardous Branch Removal
If you do not get your tree pruned, this creates a hazard of potential falling branches. These branches can fall at any moment and end up hurting someone who is beneath it, landing on your house, or surrounding area. These branches are guaranteed to fall during a storm and can cause significant damages to your home and property.
Tree Health
The removal of dead, damaged, or diseased branches is a great way to keep your trees healthy and prosperous. When these undesirable branches are removed, it promotes new growth and helps to balance equal growth of your tree.
Safety
The safety of your family should be paramount. You don’t want dead branches breaking off of your tree and falling on someone while they are innocently under the tree. These dead branches can also have the potential to fall on your home, car, or shed, potentially causing major damages.
Different Tree Pruning Techniques
There are different pruning techniques required for different trees. Also, the desired outcome will dictate what technique needs to be used. Identifying fast growing trees and low maintenance trees is also a good idea to help you know what pruning method is required. Using the correct pruning tools and proper techniques is vitally important for the overall health, disease control, and strong structure creation of your trees.
Thinning
When thinning a tree, it’s important to prioritize pruning off crossed, rubbing, or damaged limbs. During the pruning process, occasionally step back and make sure you are evenly thinning out the tree on the inner branches.
Raising
This is when you cut the lower branches and raise the base of the canopy. Trimming these low-level branches allows for safe pedestrian walking under the tree, or for easier parking, or access to entryways. You do not necessarily need to do this if there is no need to get under the tree on a regular basis.
Reduction
This technique is typically used to allow more space for things like power lines. It reduces the volume of the tree for safety reasons.
Tree Pruning Timing
For every tree, there is a right and wrong time to prune it. You always want to make sure you are pruning at the right time in order to avoid permanently damaging your tree.
Tree That Bloom Early
Some trees that bloom early include magnolias, apricots, and flowering plumbs. Once the tree’s flowering development stage is done, you should then prune it. For instance, for early spring bloomers, their blooming growth will be done in the fall/winter, so the best time to prune is in late winter but before early spring.
Trees That Bloom Late
These can include trees like dogwoods and American smoke trees, which will bloom in the summer. This makes the best time to prune them in early spring.
Deciduous Trees
These are the types of trees that have their leaves fall off during the fall. You can prune these trees in late fall or early winter once they are dormant. You will be able to tell when this is because there will be no leaves left on the tree and you will be able to see the framework of branches.
Common Homeowner Mistakes
Even though pruning seems like an easy task, it isn’t. When done correctly, it will improve the beauty, shape, and health of your tree. But when it is not done properly, it can permanently damage your tree and even possibly kill it.
Not Planning
Each pruning technique has a specific goal in mind. This makes planning important in order to figure out what your goals are and what corresponding technique you need to use.
Bad Timing
Never trim your tree during its growing season. If you do this it will starve the tree of its leaves and not allow it to adequately receive proper nutrients. It can also hinder the tree during droughts, if you overprune it. It also leaves your tree more susceptible to sun scalding which scorches the bark and harms the tree.
Trim Wrong Branches
Pruning is not about picking random branches to lop off, it is much more than that. The first order of business is to remove dead, damaged, or diseased branches before removing any others. Once this is done, you can then start taking off branches that join the limb in a V-shape. Always go for the thinner branches and leave the thicker ones.
Dull Tools
Gardening tools tend to be overlooked, which causes them to get dull and rusty. Using these neglected tools to prune your trees will cause more damages and harm than help them. Using these dull tools can cause rough or inefficient cuts, ripping or shredding the bark off the tree and causing bad wounds.
Tree Topping
Cutting off the top of a tree is one of the worst things you can do. Trees get weakened when tree topping occurs due to it going into shock and trying to heal itself. If you top your tree, you might see branches growing in weird areas. If you need to reduce the overall size of your tree, consider trimming the lateral branches instead.
Flush Cuts
This is when branches are cut too close to the trunk. This ends up removing the branch collar- a tree’s natural protection boundary. This creates an unnecessary wound and will be slow to heal.
Branch Collar Cutting
The base of a branch that attaches to the tree is known as the branch collar. This is where vascular tissue is found. So, if you cut this off, it can lose a lot of sap and make the healing process much slower. The best thing to do in order to avoid doing this is leaving a 1-inch stub on all branches
Reasons To Utilize Professions
There are many reasons to hire professionals. Here are some of the benefits:
-providing additional services
-property and tree damage prevention
-increases visual appeal
-use proper equipment
-proper tree pruning
-efficiency
How Five Star Tree Services Can Help
Leaving your tree pruning to the professionals is the best way to ensure your trees stay healthy and happy. This is why our team at Five Star Tree Services offers Tree Pruning in Toronto! Contact us today at (416) 990-3355!