SuperDIYer
ArboristSite Lurker
Michigan Red Maples - Bark Inclusions in narrow unions
I'm going to try to get some pictures in the near future, but don't have any right now, so I will apologize up front. If you care to withhold comment until the images are available, that's fine.
I will also admit to 5 years of negligence in the case of these two trees. I haven't paid much attention to them in the 5 years we have owned the house and I may very well have missed the chance to fix the problems.
Now then. I have two 20 year old Red Maples in my yard. If I had to guess, these trees had not seen ANY pruning before we moved in, and most of what was done up until this year was simple "raising" to be able to walk/mow under the trees. These trees have several defects to my eye. I am not a professional (and yes, I have had some TCIA / ISA arborists come to advise on the trees... more on that in a minute). The defects that I can observe are these, several very narrow branch unions, several of the major ones demonstrate signs of bark inclusion. These narrow unions have also facilitated a serious case of competing leaders. In both trees, the first instance of these narrow, included unions occurs at about 10 inches to 12 inches diameter on EACH of the branches.
One of these trees is close to the house and the other is darn near on top of the house. These trees are important to us for shading the house in the summer and making the back yard "playable" for the rugrats even on the most hot and sunny summer days. Therefore, hacking them down entirely and starting over is not an option.
Except for the one arborist that I actually talked to in person, the other 3 quotes all wanted to cable the unions in these trees to mitigate chances for future failure. I have gotten relatively bad impressions of cabling from this site and online arborist articles / manuals that I have read over the past several months. I guess my preference would be to have these narrow, included unions carefully reduced to one branch (I would PROBABLY have professional do it, so this is not another cheapo-home-owner thread, please save the flaming replies for someone else). I conveyed to the one arborist that I talked to on-site that I would prefer to have this rather than cabling, and that waiting several years for the tree to "look right" again was okay. My big issue is long-term-health of the tree and minimizing chances of structural failure.
Is this a reasonable request? Is it possible to keep the better of the two branches and have the branch continue to grow with sufficient strength? Or is this branch just begging for a failure in the future, even if its competing twin is gone? Is it right to assume that the tree will fill in canopy where one of the branches is removed?
Again, pictures to follow. And your advice and teaching would be greatly appreciated.
Ready to listen
jtz
PS... how is it that spell-check on this site doesn't recognize the word "arborist"!
I'm going to try to get some pictures in the near future, but don't have any right now, so I will apologize up front. If you care to withhold comment until the images are available, that's fine.
I will also admit to 5 years of negligence in the case of these two trees. I haven't paid much attention to them in the 5 years we have owned the house and I may very well have missed the chance to fix the problems.
Now then. I have two 20 year old Red Maples in my yard. If I had to guess, these trees had not seen ANY pruning before we moved in, and most of what was done up until this year was simple "raising" to be able to walk/mow under the trees. These trees have several defects to my eye. I am not a professional (and yes, I have had some TCIA / ISA arborists come to advise on the trees... more on that in a minute). The defects that I can observe are these, several very narrow branch unions, several of the major ones demonstrate signs of bark inclusion. These narrow unions have also facilitated a serious case of competing leaders. In both trees, the first instance of these narrow, included unions occurs at about 10 inches to 12 inches diameter on EACH of the branches.
One of these trees is close to the house and the other is darn near on top of the house. These trees are important to us for shading the house in the summer and making the back yard "playable" for the rugrats even on the most hot and sunny summer days. Therefore, hacking them down entirely and starting over is not an option.
Except for the one arborist that I actually talked to in person, the other 3 quotes all wanted to cable the unions in these trees to mitigate chances for future failure. I have gotten relatively bad impressions of cabling from this site and online arborist articles / manuals that I have read over the past several months. I guess my preference would be to have these narrow, included unions carefully reduced to one branch (I would PROBABLY have professional do it, so this is not another cheapo-home-owner thread, please save the flaming replies for someone else). I conveyed to the one arborist that I talked to on-site that I would prefer to have this rather than cabling, and that waiting several years for the tree to "look right" again was okay. My big issue is long-term-health of the tree and minimizing chances of structural failure.
Is this a reasonable request? Is it possible to keep the better of the two branches and have the branch continue to grow with sufficient strength? Or is this branch just begging for a failure in the future, even if its competing twin is gone? Is it right to assume that the tree will fill in canopy where one of the branches is removed?
Again, pictures to follow. And your advice and teaching would be greatly appreciated.
Ready to listen
jtz
PS... how is it that spell-check on this site doesn't recognize the word "arborist"!
Last edited:
