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TREE

PRUNING

Trimming/Pruning your trees will not only keep your trees looking great, but it also helps ensure safety and health of the trees around your Sarasota home. Improper trimming and pruning services can and will cause harm to your trees. From weakening of branch structure to improper flush cuts that will eventually lead to cavities and interior rotting. Hiring a tree service that lacks proper certifications, training, and experience in tree branch cutting can bring great risk to the overall health of your property’s foliage.


When it comes to tree trimming and pruning, Sarasota Tree Service has over 40 years of experience. We have the know-how and skills to execute a job that will not only look great, but will also ensure that your trees stay healthy.

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INFORMATION TO KNOW

There are a number of factors that must be considered when deciding how a tree should be pruned. Size, maturity, species, and location are all determining factors in the process. As an ISA certified company in Sarasota, Fey and Sons, specializes in tree trimming and pruning services throughand is familiar with all the effective techniques and methods.

 

Here are some of the techniques and methods that our experts use:

  • Dead Wooding – Dead wooding is the removal of dead, weak, and dying branches. Dead wooding is important not only for the look of your trees and surrounding property, but it also eliminates hazards. Falling branches can cause structural damage to your home and landscape. Dead-wooding also helps with air flow through-out your trees canopy which will decrease the chances of uprooting and storm damage.

  • Interior Pruning/Crown Thinning – Includes dead-wooding, removal of diseased, crowded, weakly attached, low hanging branches and epicormic growth (Suckers, and shoots). Interior Pruning/Crown Thinning is a corrective and preventive method that ensures proper and controlled growth. Furthermore, interior pruning and thinning will keep your trees nice and healthy by increasing light penetration and air flow, which in turn will promote and maintain healthy interior foliage.

Oak.jpg
BE CAREFUL

Proper pruning methods should be preformed with the goal of making sure that your tree maintains its natural beauty and shape while also ensuring that when the process is completed, your tree is structurally sound, safe, and healthy.

 

Below are some improper pruning techniques that you, as a customer, may encounter when dealing with inexperienced and non-certified companies.

 

Lion Tailing

Lion-tailing is a common form of over-pruning. When it comes to pruning your trees, it is very important to maintain well-spaced inner lateral branches. Even distribution of foliage along any given branch is absolutely necessary and is very important. Lion-tailing is a common improper pruning method that not only takes away from a tree's natural beauty, but also bring fourth the potential of hazard and health.

 

Lion-tailing occurs when a tree is essentially stripped of most, or all, of its interior branches and foliage while only leaving just a minimal amount of growth at the end of the branch.

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In addition to not looking good, it brings forth a number of problems such as: 

  • End heavy branches

  • Branch failure/breakage

  • Sun scalding 

  • Rapid sucker growth

  • Rotting/Cracks

  • Increased disease and insect vulnerability

  • Severe stress

Example of lion-tailing-bad-pruning

Improper Pruning: Lion-Tailing.

Tree NOT pruned by Fey and Sons, LLC.

Rip Cuts

When hiring a tree service, the average customer would assume that the company they have chosen is capable of making proper cuts. Unfortunately, many times this is not the case because tree work is an art. Designating which branches and leads that need to be removed is only part of the battle; being able to execute each cut throughout a tree is another. Rip and Flush cuts are unfortunately way to common in this business and only occur because of laziness or ignorance.

Rip Cuts.jpg

Proper Collar Cut

Flush Cut
When making a final cut, whether it’s a small limb or a very big lead, each cut should be made just above the branch collar in almost all cases. A flush Cut is the final cut that has been made below the branch collar. Flush cuts induce stress and force the tree to work harder to heal. Flush cuts also expose the inner layer (cambium layer) of the tree which in turn can produce rot, decay, and insect vulnerability. 

Flush Cut.jpg

Improper Flush Cut. Cut NOT made

by Fey and Sons, LLC.

Stub Cuts

When pruning out a tree (especially hardwood trees), your final cut should be in the collar of where the branch was and the trunk is. A stub cut is essentially the opposite of a flush cut. Instead of cutting in to deep, the final cut has been done leaving to much of the branch. Pruning inside the collar allows a tree to heal itself properly. Leaving to much can induce rot in the stub, could produce sucker growth, or even both. Leaving a stub as a final cut is incorrect and it's bad for your tree.

 

Hat-Racking (Topping) / Heading

Hat-racking (also known as topping) is a common pruning technique among unqualified companies where anywhere from 50% to 100% of the canopy has been removed. All that is left are stubs and branches. This is one of the worst things you can do to most trees and a major no-no for trees such as Oak Trees and other hardwoods.

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Your tree needs shade, especially in Florida. Topping your tree can cause sun-scalding to the bark, severe stress, and interior rot. Furthermore, It will shock the tree by taking away the tree’s energy-producing canopy causing massive regrowth of weakly attached sucker growth (epicormic branches) at each cut. Also, keep in mind that because the tree has been rid of its leaves and its canopy, the tree is extremely vulnerable to disease. This form of pruning will not only ruin the natural beauty of your tree, but will more than likely slowly kill it. Topping is done because it is easy, takes very little skill, and it lets a customer know that there has been work done to the tree. A tree that has been pruned correctly will not look as though it has been heavily pruned at all.   

 

Heading is essentially the same as hat-racking/topping but on a smaller scale. This kind of pruning normally occurs when a tree needs some uplifting, a roof line needs to be cleared, or there is growth coming to close to a structure. Instead of raising the canopy or removing only the necessary branches to raise a lead (more time consuming), a cut is done in the middle of the branch leaving just a long stub. Paying customers are essentially told that new growth will appear on the branch, but they are not told that the new growth will be weakly attached and that the stub with new growth will more than likely fail at some point. It is actually better to remove the branch entirely than it is to leave a stub/headed lead.

Hat-Racking

DO NOT TOP YOUR TREES! Picture is

NOT of work done by Fey and Sons, LLC

Facts about Pruning:

  • Pruning cuts must be made with the understanding of how a tree will respond to the cut.

  • Improper pruning can cause damage which will continue during the life span of the tree.

  • Since each cut has the potential to change the growth of a tree, no branch should be removed without reason.

  • Common reasons for pruning are:

    • Remove dead branches

    • Remove crowded or crossing limbs that may create future structural problems

    • Eliminate hazards

    • Slow growth by removing foliage

    • Reduce wind resistance

    • Increase light penetration

  • In most cases pruning/trimming is of a corrective or preventative nature.

  • When it comes to pruning trees, each cut should be made carefully and at the correct location which  leaves a smooth surface with no jagged edges or torn bark.  Each cut should be made just above the branch collar.

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