Maple Tree pruning

[ajain]

I live in Northern California and have 2 maple trees that I would like to prune. Read about the sap bleeding on these trees, is this something I should be worried about. The Western Guide recommends pruning the maples in summer or early fall. The trees have no leaves at this time, so I was kinda sorta hoping to prune them now. Any suggestions?

BTW, this is a great site and the time folks take to reply is greatly appreciated.

Anu

 

[Jay Banks]

I'd wait until late spring after leaf out. What's the rush?

 

[ajain]

Jay, I wanted to do it now since it seems a little bit easier to see the twigs/branches now without the leaves. Later on, the tree becomes so dense with leaves that I have a hard time figuring out which ones to prune.
Anyhow, if it detrimental to the tree, I will definitely wait till summer. Please advise. Thanks

 

[Jay Banks]

You can prune any time your saw is sharp! Think about this- after leaf out you can tell which branch is dead. I would dead wood first before removing live branches.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

here are some good links on proper prunning

http://search.dogpile.com/texis/search?q=proper+pruning&geo=no&fs=web

The "bleeding" is purely aesthetic, some say the sap flow actualy helps limit deacy.

When you take a branch, step back and look at the tree. Dont start with large branches because large wounds lead to large pockets of decay.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

John's got it right. The sap is mostly water. With sugar maples the sap is only about 8% sugar, the rest of the maples are less.

Spend most of your time pruning branches in the outer thrid of the crown. Make sure you understand why you are removing branches.

What pruning books have you read? The best book that I've found about pruning is Ed Gilman's book, An Illustrated Guide to Pruning. His subordination theme is a good plan.

Tom

 

[Shespen]

DROP THOSE PRUNNERS for a second here and lets think this over! First of all what kind of maple are you working on? If you are in N. Cal then I suspect that it is a Big Leaf Maple. Is it a native or what. First identify the tree that you are working on. The Easterners that live in the snow have no idea what kind of growth a maple is capable of putting on out here in the west. If you just start hacking off branches on some of these maples out here you will wind up with suckers (water sprouts) that can be 14ft long by the end of the summer! If it is a variety of a japonese maple and you tip it back you will wind up with 6 to 12 sprouts coming out of where you made your cut by the end of the summer.
The rule of thumb out here is to never take off more than 10% of the green folige from the tree as a whole or from an individual branch. More than that and you risk root die-back which will in turn create more sucker growth as the tree tries to compensate for root starvation by creating more leaves. Remember that the leaves feed the roots!
First identify what kind of tree you have. Second, identify specifically why you need to prune it. Third, come on back here and we will help you acomplish your goal.

talk to you later