big redwood; photo by Bob Bingham
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Pruning Anecdotes
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| Correct pruning is PlantAmnesty's core cause. For decades, I have pruned professionally, helping hundreds of clients, experiencing a striking range of situations, learning much, and having a good time. Below, I give you a few vignettes to illustrate pruning principles. More such lore is in my books, newsletters, tours and website (ArthurLeeJ.com). |
| SIZE REDUCTION is pruning's main motive in most cases. Clients exclaim, "it is out of control. Help!" So, much pruning is more or less status quo maintenance as regards tree or shrub size, not unlike a human haircut or shave. The ideal way and time to do so? It depends on the species, its role and location. Peanut-butter Tree (Clerodendrum trichotomum) booms with vigor. To constrain one, in winter ignore it --because to prune it then will promote strong growth. But after it flushes foliage in summer, reduce the branch length, thin its density, and on many shoots pluck away every other leaf. This 50% reduction method enables me to keep a specimen 15 years old, about 8 feet tall and wide. It still offers pleasing shape, profuse fragant flowers and pretty berries. |
| GROWTH-RATE REDUCTION is used when trees are so near a house or other structure, that action is taken to minimize growth to postpone the eventual removal. A Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) that I worked on, about 3 feet from a house window, has the thickest trunk of its species known in Seattle (over 7.5 feet). It offers a stunning visual presence when viewed from the kitchen, a spectacle that few trees in Seattle can match, and none exceed. Its photo from inside the house could feature on a magazine cover. To slow its growth, the crown density was reduced carefully; roots were pruned; and I advised the client: water the garden as little as possible, except potted plants on the patio, or window boxes. Do not fertilize the garden, especially with nitrogen. Rake and remove most of the annual leaf and cone drop rather than keeping it as mulch. Prune the tree every 3 years, to reduce its photosynthetic capacity. In brief, do the opposite of what one does to encourage vegetative growth (on the other hand, floral and cone production helps retard vegetative growth). Another thing that will buy time is to reduce the bark thickness nearest the house. A redwood's thick spongy bark can be a foot thick, to guard against fires. Well, shave off all but an inch or two and trust that a fire will not occur. |
| WEIGHT REDUCTION to make a tree or shrub less likely to variously snap a limb, split, lay down or even fall over, is common. When a tree has fallen, one must sometimes remove weight quickly --safely-- from whatever the tree or branch is resting on, or about to crush. With heavy wood, this job is dangerous. In 2011, I helped reduce weight on a Mercer Island native yew (Taxus brevifolia) tree hundreds of years old, its trunk over 4 feet thick. The wood was exceptionally heavy. The venerable tree was later poisoned by a neighbor. |
| INSTANT BONSAI is a nickname for radical renovation, a technique espoused with verve by the Revolutionary Garden Party (just kidding). Most often, this is done when an amenable shrub has grown gigantic, or was malpruned previously so it presents an appearance of an oppressive, solid blob, recalling in shape perhaps a stove or washing machine. The ideal time to cut it down to near or at the ground level, is right before or as its spring growth starts --more or less in March to mid-April for most shrubs. Every once in a blue moon, this action results in the plant dying, like an anesthetized patient. But 99% of the time it grows back vigorously in a natural celebration of flourishing greenery, released from captivity. |
| REVERSION CONTROL is done when either rootstocks have popped up as suckers, or when variegated foliage reverts back to pure green. It is usual to see grafted Witch Hazel (Hamamelis) shrubs with root suckers of the American species, inferior ornamentally to the East Asian species and hybrids. Also, Rhododendron ponticum overtakes superior rhodies grafted upon it. Rosebush rootsuckers such as 'Dr. Huey' are ugly, albeit tough. The graceful variegated Azara microphylla tree of Ciscoe Morris went green at its top, some 30 feet up, so I climbed it and cut out the greenery in 2016. It has gone green again, defiantly, near the top, so is on my To Do list. Plants that do not quit "misbehaving," are cash cows: they grow wayward; I cut out their offending branches; the client pays me. Repeat. |
FIXING MALPRUNING can require a bit at a time over many years. An immense, old Phinney Ridge apple tree with a trunk about 2.5 feet thick, that I have pruned since 2001, had been previously overpruned into a horrible crude umbrella. Every year since, it has improved. Since the tree is hemmed in by a driveway, walkway, electric wires, and house, it must be kept about 30 feet wide, and shorter. So, I reduce longer branches, remove deadwood, and thin. In April, this took me nearly 4 hours, the tree is so massive.
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huge apple tree ; photo by ALJ
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| (Incidentally, the common belief that apple trees should be pruned in winter, is based not on tree physiology or needs, but is an artifact of the days when workers could not do soil or crop work in the winter, and so therefore pruned, lest they be idle. Pruning apple trees after they have leafed out, or even set fruit, offers benefits. You spot deadwood more readily. You see the health of the leaves; see how the branches droop with their weight. You can thin more deftly. You suppress excess vigor. You can use the trimmings as goat food. You can thin excess fruit. On the other hand, peach trees and apricot trees should be pruned hard in winter, like hybrid tea rose bushes, to stimulate strong new growth.) |
IT'S NOT ALL PRUNING. The old saying, "as the twig is bent, so the tree shall grow," reminds us that besides amputation, like deleting unnecessary words from a written piece, we can also direct growth using wire, string, stakes, branch-spreaders, weights, heavenly intervention, and whatnot. In June, I did a 12.5-hour day wherein I had one task only: pruning, grooming, and tying, many formally espaliered Camellia Sasanqua shrubs. I used different wire thicknesses: bigger wire for bigger branches, finer wire for little twigs. The photo below shows only three of the many shrubs. One time, I bent over a beanpole-like etiolated Eucalyptus and buried its top in the ground. It kept growing, and as intended gave attractive foliage right where the client could admire it. Beginner pruners sometimes automatically cut off all watershoots. Experience shows, however, that leaving some, reducing some, bending some, and removing some wholly, is the intelligent, nuanced approach.
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espaliered Camellias ; photo by ALJ
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| Enough on pruning, for now. Maybe another time I will write about the topiary giraffe I pruned on my tip-toes atop a ladder; or root pruning; or the giant rhodie that took 8 hours to deadhead; or intentionally girdled trees; or the client who had me prune a houseplant Ficus. People love their trees and derive deep contentment from them. |
| Clients appreciate sensible, sensitive care. The best professional pruners are adaptable, at least diplomatic --if not charming, witty and smiling-- patient, knowledgeable, responsible, use the right tools, work safely, and clean up our messes. We put up with occasional bad weather, thorns, yellow jackets, arduous labor, risky operations, difficult co-workers or clients, tool failures, bad traffic, unfair or dumb laws. We do it because we must earn a living somehow, and getting paid to exercise with plant life outside, appeals to us. |
Rendering plants less disorderly, making them better looking, more suitable, and safer, is rewarding. Many good clients are a joy to work for. I banter with all, barter with some, and socialize with the best. For me, it is not all about money. Also, though without employees, I team-up when needed with other workers, both beginners and skilled ones. If interested, contact me. At the end of the day, as we all relax during happy hour, we may gladly raise a toast "to all things green --except envy."
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(originally published in the PlantAmnesty newsletter, Summer 2019
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