By Josh Smalley, The Trussville Tree Commission, Special to the Tribune
As spring begins to bloom in Alabama, we turn our attention to our yards and landscaping. Finally, after a long winter of neglect and dormancy, we all feel that desire to get outside, enjoy the sunshine, and begin the work to reclaim and beautify our outdoor spaces. Many times, that work includes the need to perform maintenance pruning on our yard trees and woody shrubs.
There is never a bad time to remove dead, damaged, or diseased branches. The most important thing is to have sharp and clean tools. You can safely remove some dead, damaged, overgrown, or dying branches in early spring – late March through early April – as long as you do not remove too many branches. You don’t want to overstress your trees during this prime growing season. This would put them at risk of disease or pest infestation.
Tree limbs are pruned for multiple reasons, resulting in a better-looking and better performing tree. Although trees do grow quite naturally without pruning, this routine landscape maintenance allows your trees to reach their full potential and live a long life. But before you can learn how to trim a tree properly, you need to know why you should trim a tree.
Pruning for plant health focuses on removing dead, dying, and diseased branches, branches that rub together, and any branch stubs so the entire tree continues to grow in a healthy way. Opening the canopy to let light and air filter throughout the entire tree allows for increased foliage while decreasing the risk of disease. By pruning and trimming trees in specific ways, you can encourage fruiting and flowering, shape plants into specific forms, and control plant size.
When thinning, reducing, and shaping branches and limbs small enough to cut with hand tools, keep in mind that your cuts will encourage new growth. Cut limbs ¼ inch above a bud that faces the outside of the plant. This will be the direction of the new growth. Keep your cuts at a 45-degree angle to prevent water damage and disease.
Properly pruned tree branches form a callus where the removed branch once was. This callus is essential to the health of the tree. Most tree branches that are cut back to the trunk or a main branch will require three cuts to prevent damage to the bark. The first two cuts remove the weight from the tree branch, and the final cut is designed for the best callus growth.