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My land in MN had been left alone for at least 70 years. Trees have grown close together. Presently, I'm primarily concerned with oaks, mostly burr oaks that have reached canopy height, tall with narrow crowns. I'd like to keep the overall canopy but would rather have fewer, larger, and more...

Hi Guys! This leaf fell off a burr oak I'm fond of yesterday. Not sure what to make of it. From the ground my untrained eye doesn't spot any large areas of discoloration in the crown. I'm not sure, however, this issue would be noticeable from a distance even if all the leaves looked similar...

I live in an oak woodland with oak wilt nearby. I’ve had several large red oaks fail over recent years from structural non wilt related reasons. One fell on its own and the other two I had to drop because they threatened my home. I still have the bottom sections of these 3 large trunks yet to...

Firstly, I apologize for the quality of the photos. Conditions were somewhat difficult and I was not aware that quality was lacking until returning indoors. If you need better photos in order to respond, let me know what perspective you'd like and I'll try to get it for you. The Tree - A large...

Fungus on dead or suffering limbs causes me concern for the whole tree. I'm aware that trees have the ability to protect themselves and a superficial understanding of the 4 types of compartmentalization. Observation, seems to have taught me that these defenses don't always work. Sometimes the...

From the perspective of tree health only, assuming proper cutting technique, can you think of a time when it would be better to leave a dead limb on a mature deciduous tree, oak, black cherry, elm. or ash to be specific, rather than remove it? If so, please describe it. Alternatively asked, is...

Hi, My wife loves catalpa blossoms. I think they're pretty swell too. We count ourselves lucky to have a volunteer sapling on our property and I'm trying to encourage it. Unfortunately, an important structural branch at the base of the crown partially broke from the trunk about a year ago after...

Hi, I cut down a couple of oaks in my yard recently due to illness. One white and one red. The white one (first 3 photos below) was alive but struggling. After dropping it, it became apparent hat it has a white fungus beneath the bark in one spot and on the outside of the bark as well. The...

My property was an oak savanna that became a woodland ultimately comprised of a large proportion of buckthorn and boxelders weed trees which I've recently removed. The older trees were large spreading oaks. There are also quite a few woodland grown oaks as well as black cherry, ash, and elm...

Had hoped this tree would develop. Can you tell me if it is lost or what, if anything, should be done to save it?

My neighbor has a couple of oaks that died of oak wilt a year or more ago. He has taken them down except for the lower trunk and stump. His chainsaw crapped out and he has no solution for the trunk. He's asked me to help out using my chainsaw and stump grinder. I have no problem with doing this...

Hi Guys, Boxelders have been overcrowding my 3 1/2 acre oak woodland and so, I’ve been felling them and I’ve cut a half dozen stumps to just above ground level with my chain saw. The following awarenesses have occured to me, however: 1. Cutting stumps to the ground with a chain saw may not...

Take, for example, a large tree limb being pruned with a chain saw and the diameter of the limb is greater than the bar length. Is it ok to cut from both sides? ie. make a cut on one side then move to the other side to make the complimentary cut. Does it impede wound healing if the cuts don't...

I'm concerned about infecting neighboring oaks through their root systems.

I'm in the process of trimming dead branches from my oaks with either a manual or power pole pruner. Many of the branches are bare of bark down to the trunk where the tree has distinctively protected itself by growing a ring of wound wood around the bare branch. Often, in an effort to trim the...

I've been cutting dead branches from mature oaks around my house. After study, most cuts seem reasonably straight forward but this one has me puzzled. I invite your feedback and advice. Allow me to apologize in advance for not taking photos before cutting and even more importantly, cutting...

I'm in the process of reclaiming a few acres of a wild woodland of mature oaks. I think it would be beneficial to prune dead limbs of the oaks. There are alot of oaks and alot of dead limbs. My pruning tactics to date have involved employing the tallest pole saws I could find on the parts of...

I'm about to prune a lot of mature oaks that have never been pruned before. My objective is mostly limited to removing dead limbs in an effort to improve tree health. I'm sure rot from some of these limbs will have moved past the branch collar into the trunk. My question has to do with what to...

My neighbor across the street lost a beautiful grouping of oaks to oak wilt at the foot of his driveway. Most are gone now but there is still a large one standing that's been dead a few years. Opposite them, on my side of our paved little residential street, are a few of my own. There are no...

I'd really like to save the remaining trunk of this mature red oak tree since it occupies an important location in front of my home. The tree previously had a double leader split at the base. The left trunk broke on it's own a decade or more ago. A broken stump about 4 or 5' high was left...