Cutting lower branches of Redwood Tree and Liquid Amber

[ukearns]

Hi,

I have a redwood and a liquid amber tree beside my deck. I believe they are both about 7 years old.. I would like to extend my deck and I don't want to cut these trees down - they are beautiful and provide good shade and privacy. I would like to know if I could extend the deck around these tree but would need to cut the lower branches to make head room. Is it possible to cut off the lower branches of these trees without severly damaging the tree and also making it unstable? I am guessing the trees are about 20 -25 ft or so .... I would need to cut off the lower branches to about 10ft.

Advice would be really appreciated.

tx
Una

 

[treeseer]

Maybe, if you do it vey gradually. A picture would really help.

 

[Pynnonen]

Thanks for the link to "Trees are Good"

Thanks for the link to www.treesaregood.com. I had questions about tree pruning. But I have a question. Many years ago, I cut limbs off as close to the trunk as possible, leaving maybe about 3/4" of the collar, and the trees healed well.
Some tree company that my ex-wife hired left about 2" on branches last year.
Is it OK to cut them back to 3/4", back to the branch collar now? Should I wait for fall?

 

[rbtree]

sure pynonnen, the sooner the better...but make sure to leave the collar intact.

 

[rbtree]

ukearns, you can't hurt the redwood, imo. The liquid amber would be a different story. My guess is it already has scaffold branches established below 10 feet. If possible, do the cutting gradually, as treeseer stated...perhaps leaving a portion of the branch, cut to a lateral...then it can be cut all the way back in a year or two...

Often a tree has minor branches below the scaffold limbs. These can be removed pretty safely, especially if they are say only 10-15% the diameter of the trunk at their points of attachment.

 

[treeseer]

sure pynonnen, the sooner the better...but make sure to leave the collar intact.

Sounds like the ex-wife had poor taste in tree companies, too. The more I look at collars, the more I see a number of rings of tissue that could be called a collar. I try to pick the one that looks the best, that will close the fastest. 2" on most trees is a stub that invites rot into the heart of the tree. But then again I've made cuts further from the trunk than that.

Can you post a picture?

 

[treeseer]

Collars and natural targets, seek and ye may find

Ran across this in a tree today; you can see hypoxylon (aka Ustulina deusta?) canker infection in a dead branch stopping at the collar. pic 2 show a cut that left too much decay imo; pic 3 eradicated most of it; hate to get that close but with an active pathogen like that I figured best to get it out. 2nd thoughts now; did I go too far?

pic 4 is of a stub that grew a cute lil shroom; imagine the mycelia busting into the trunk because someone left a honkin horizontal stub like that!
Pics on next post.

 

[JamesTX]

treeseer - when you cut off a limb like that and still see decay, do you ever use a router to hollow the stump out to the healthy tissue, like a dentist would do to a tooth?

 

[treeseer]

treeseer - when you cut off a limb like that and still see decay, do you ever use a router to hollow the stump out to the healthy tissue, like a dentist would do to a tooth?

do not have a portable router to use in tree but yes I do excavate rot with the tip of my handsaw or other tool. If it's in reach of a hose I'll flush it, and if pathogen pressure is strong I'll disinfect with 10% bleach.

I agree the dentist analogy is useful here. Routing/digging out decay definitely preferable to cutting into collar imo; the second cut would still be considered a proper shigo natural target cut I think; should've made a sideview pic too.