pruning honey locust

[Guy Meilleur]

Great conversation; lots of work figuring out what the other guy said but well worth it.
Overall I'm with MM, and ISA is also backing away from its stance on how often it is right to take off healthy lower limbs. To Mike's list of why to keep them I would add sunscald, habitat, aesthetics and other environmental benefits.

JPS still talks about meeting the client's desires rather than building on the value the tree delivers. If he keeps that up, we'll just have to bounce:blob5: him from the Advocata pro Arboribus!

 

[Joe]

You are all wrong! Limit the pruning to broken, dead, dieing, and diseased limbs. Allow the tree to recover from being transplanted. Then, reread and apply the arguements in this thread.

Joe

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

The tree in the picture was trimmed that way at the nursery.
The landscapers thatt planted it probably would have trimmed it up higher, if they could have figured out how to. That's what is ingrained into everyones idea about tree care, right? Trim the lower limbs so it grows taller?

I've been looking to plant some trees in my yard but none of the nurseries I've been to sell natural looking trees. It looks like I'll need to find one growing in the wild and dig it myself. That's a sad comment on the state of nurseries.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Mike Maas

I've been looking to plant some trees in my yard but none of the nurseries I've been to sell natural looking trees.
It's an unfortunate economic fact that trees with spreading lower branches take up more room so they cost more to grow. This is just one more reason nurseries do improper raising.
It looks like I'll need to find one growing in the wild and dig it myself. That's a sad comment on the state of nurseries.

Or start growing your own! Speaking of improper raising, a sadder comment yet is the state of the root systems they sell.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

About all I'll add is that those trees are irregular growers, so trying to make them totally even can be an unreasonable goal at times.

Try to make it more balanced.

"Cutting back" usually makes a honey locust even more unbalanced and tangled.

 

[DadF]

OK here's my two cents worth.

Mike I agree with the over pruning issue and see it done around here quite often. But there are also times when trees MUST co-exsist with human activities, and guess what-in most cases the humans win. I also must start to prune trees in our nursery so that when we plant them on campus there will not be problems with students running into branches or worse yet hanging off of them. The campus environment can be a completely different one than the homeowner yard. In most cases the homeowner really wants to help his trees whenever he/she can. Unfortunately, that is not the case on this campus where the students can easily ruin a tree overnight if "it's in the way". Simply put we must try to keep limbs at a height where they are not going to be abused and also to limit our security problems. We also have to maintain sidewalk clearance for snow removal operations and our building maintenance will not let a tree touch a building.
There are two sides to every story and now you may understand why I was as adament as I was about your "bending wood" thread as I was, because sometimes there is world of difference between what the municipal arborist and the "for hire" arborist must achieve for an end result.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by DadF
Simply put we must try to keep limbs at a height where they are not going to be abused and also to limit our security problems.

DadF, campuses here--Duke, etc.--allow magnolias and some oaks etc. to retain low branches. If branches near the ground are allowed to stay, the "running into" fear isn't there. The security concern is way overdone here; what are the chances of a mugger hiding behind a big thick tree and suddenly running all they way around it to do something bad?

Much of NCSU's landscape, trees and hedges, was ruined due to fear. Some things had to get raised or go, many were butchered needlessly. I know you get a lot of pressure to avoid liability, but are there not SOME trees on your campus that can be fully branched?

 

[DadF]

Guy,
Yes we do have a few trees that have been left alone. Have a (had) a beautiful multistemed horse chestnut on one of our main malls(until it dropped 1/4 of it this summer) and there are a few beeches that have been left to grow naturally, for the most part however we have to keep a line of sight for non-mugging. I agree that it has gone overboard but all it takes is once and the "take back the nighters" have really been raising cane(no pun intended). The other problems we have are the skateboarders/inliners. We have all but given up planting a tree in one tree well because it apparently is in the way of their antics/vandalism. Fortunately we do have a Horticultural park right next to campus where trees are allowed to do what trees are supposed to do. We had the state champion Black maple there until last year when a storm took it out .
For the most part our snow removal is done with tractor mounted brooms(students call 'em "ice polishers"). The tractors are all in the 35-45 hp range so we have to keep clearance for the cabs on those, usually at least 8' in height.
But what we lack in natural tree habit we try to make up in tree diversity. We are, after all, a land grant university so we keep as many species on campus as possible. We also have adapted(finally) a tree protection policy that has helped us get the funds we need to save some of the trees that have been in the way of construction. It also allows us to appraise and recover funds for any trees that are lost. Don't know if anyone has been around the Purdue campus lately but the only constant around here since our new university president has been new construction, so the tree protection policy has started to swing the balance back toward saving trees rather than just cut and replant.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

How unfortunate that students have to go to a special area to see what a naturally grown tree looks like, kind of like going to a museum to see extinct animal spieces.
I'm sure that there are spots on campus where evergreens are planted, are these all raised up too? Couldn't the same logic that allows most of these trees to have lower limbs, be applied to deciduous trees? How about in open lawn areas?
Could you have a small percentage of the deciduous trees in the campus nursery be allowed to develop an open grown habit?

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by DadF
But what we lack in natural tree habit we try to make up in tree diversity. We are, after all, a land grant university so we keep as many species on campus as possible.

Do you have a campus plant list you can refer me to? NCSU needs some encouragement; if they plant another willow oak, I think I'm going to pull it out myself!

All in all it sounds like you're doing the best in a tricky situation; thanks for sharing.

 

[DadF]

Mike, I have almost a dozen spruce and fir in the nursery now that are over 10' and am having a real hard time trying to find somplace to put them because of the visibility issue-nobody wants them and they're beautiful trees. We used to have wonderful plantings of naturally flowing forsythia that were gorgeous in the spring-now they have either been taken out or are so hacked up that they are no longer representative of the species, but at least we don't have rapist hiding out in them (that's for the forsythia).
Guy, what kind of info do you want? We have a campus tree trail with a nice publication to go with it(that we are losing funding for for more printing). We also have the entire campus on a computer inventory. That has a listing of every tree on campus, size, condition and when planted(within the last four years). It could be sent to you but wouldn't be small file . PM me and we'll see what we can do. I'm not the computer guru(I can check my email and that's about it ) but the other arborist could probably come up with something.

 

[NickfromWI]

Originally posted by FLATFILER
How would ya top this one guys?!


Way too much time on my hands.....


FLATFILER

"A baobob is something that you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with it's roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobobs are too many, the planet will split into many pieces...."

...Antione de Saint-Exupery, Prof. of Arboriculture, French University.

 

[rumination]

just in case you were curious, here's the campus plants webpage for University of Hawaii at Manoa. and since baobobs are floating around, check out the picture of our baobob (Adansonia digitata) and how they designed the art building around it.

http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/carr/160webindex.htm

 

[coffeecraver]

Municipal Arborists are faced with removing lower limbs for
public safety. I removed the lower limbs from a Hemlock because
there was toddlers clothing under the tree.One week later a child
molester was arrested in the area. His safe Hemlock was not safe anymore.
Parks and playgrounds have issues like this to deal with.It may not be , in the trees best health interest.But weigh the difference.
Making proper pruning cuts are necessary.

The right tree in the right place motto was not around when some of these trees were planted,and someone has to deal with them.
John Paul is correct,and some municpal arborists as well as commercial and residential arborists can learn from him.

Low branches should be reduced to stunt then and removed at a later date.

Here are some links on proper pruning.


__________________
John Paul Sanborn
Subcontracting Arborist - Consulting Arborist
Southeastern Wisconsin ***** 414-379-0442

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Here's a neat lower limb. It grows up a hill, sets on two cedar posts (one you can see in the photo) and lays on the patio, before it grows up and almost touches the gutter.
This is one of the collest patios I have ever seen, the highlight is the beautiful oak limb growing into the space.
Shigo says' "touch trees", well this one you can easily touch and appreciate.
The picture doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Here's some more of the limb.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
the highlight is the beautiful oak limb growing into the space.

Some might consider it a lowlight; nasty branch blocking walking space, etc.

But the majority would see the value and beauty no doubt. It would need protecting from a dumb decision; why not a bidhouse on the outer reaches?

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

for what its worth i agree with mike regarding removal of bottom branches ..obviously if they have to go for any number of reasons then yes take them off after all this is arboriculture !!

but wherever poss leave them alone ..if bottom branches where not needed they would not be there so simple to understand . trees with bottom branches still intact always look so more healthy and vigourous to me..

one other thing the lower branches are obviosly closer to the ground/soil so low wounds must lead to a greater chance of the tree getting fungal and bacterial infections /diseases anyone got any opinions on this theory...

this theory relates more to mature trees

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by ROLLACOSTA
lower branches are obviosly closer to the ground/soil so low wounds must lead to a greater chance of the tree getting fungal and bacterial infections /diseases anyone got any opinions on this theory...

Uhh, maybe. But since spores fly high and wide, I wouldn't bet a lot on it.

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

thanks GUY been looking forward to an answer on that one