residential pruning: should you Do It Yourself ?

or should you book a learning pruning session ?

or have someone design and set up the framework ?

Pruning, grows a better tree; trees benefit from pruning:

We enthusiastically support people pruning their own trees.. pruning ‘your trees yourself’ actively promotes de-stressing, creating accomplishment that is like meditation while touching nature. And this comes with satisfaction because beautiful landscapes are either formed around and because of a beautiful tree, and, you had a hand in creating at least one beautiful tree. The world becomes a better place.

Choosing what steps are needed to effectively design a beautiful tree, can however be stressful.

Understand and decide, ‘why the tree needs to be pruned, and “to what shape because ___”‘.

Pruning, the ‘where to cut’ cutting of branches in the right place, is easy. Choosing ‘What to prune’ where and when… is often not as easy.

Pruning older established trees, is easier than starting them from the sapling ‘scaffold’ beginning, because the first step is finding the “line of a branch” where the branch attaches to the tree, and asking 2 questions:

1) Does this branch belong ? (Note: pruning & design is ‘top down ~ outside in’)

– ‘belonging’ ..because the brain automatically creates a mental hierarchy of patterns ‘that fit with each other’, and decides ‘group commonality’ automatically. You, your brain, knows what fits and can decide if that branch has benefit, even if it does not fit.

Secondly: does this branch seem awkward in “running across the grain”, and if so, “where can I cut this branch at a point where it fits the overall pattern ?”

2a) Growing a branch back is more work, but, also happens when branches break off, or, missing branches can be grown.

A few tricks and tips to keep in mind is that after trees are pruned to a shape, the inside of the tree should have foliage – never clean out foliage from the inside. Those twigs are new branches.

Changing an ‘extreme’ empty space design with minimal is often impossible, or will take years to adapt and recover, and making a “final objective” pruning plan is recommended. Developing tools along the way is beneficial, ie:

If a branch is a question of ‘to remove or keep : where? ‘, ~ then tie twine or coloured ribbon to the branch in places, to keep track of that one branch, starting of course at the end result ~ the outside moving inwards. This is ‘follow the Line’ design.

There are three levels of finishing trees and shrubs ~ known as Shin, Gyou, Sou pruning:

Shin is Manmade high finish, high maintenance, and eye-catching, mostly niwaki, topiary, …

Gyou is the ‘Man:Nature inter-relationship’, and medium budget, a cleaned sense of manicured nature, most often understood as ‘a venerable beauty’ that emulates paintings from the Group of Seven.

Sou is Natural pruning, careful design, restfully restorative, and the easiest lowest cost maintenance afterwards.

.. pruning at the starting out phase, at the time of initial design, is mostly all the same, and if design decisions are made as soon as possible, then result is achieved much faster.

Opening conversations with your pruner should assess & determine the tree and shrub design understanding what the clients desired shape is, and crossed with the type of finish that works best for the tree & the clients needs, and considering the after-care costs involved.

Shin, a high finish that sculptures the tree, is a high cost setup, low cost mid-period of maintenance that has a high cost of thinning, with an high 2 or optional 3 times a year maintenance. This will always need maintenance.

Entry into Gyou is a little lower in setup cost, and has a lower aftercare cost of maintenance, because the growth can be slowed enough for care every few years.

While Sou, depending on the species, has a higher entry cost, and the lowest maintenance cost that means that the tree growth can be slowed and left on its own.

Way-finding: Pruning trees for directing people:

Our hard-wired brains, are automatically drawn by highly finished trees that are heavily shaped, such as topiary, hedges, niwaki, any ‘extreme’ manmade areas draw attention,

and everyone is hard-wired to ignore tree or shrub areas that have been left to nature and looking abandoned. Basically this sense of wild nature, as compared to tamed nature, is the reason behind ‘curb-appeal’ and creating the desire to enter buildings, or to avoid buildings.