Pruning

Here is an example of an Ash tree that was in dire need of a good pruning. From what we could tell, it had never been pruned before. We had to take quite a bit of volume out. Most of what came out was dead, broken, or structurally unsound and unsafe for the public. Additionally, some large reductions had to be made to comply with city codes for street and sidewalk clearance. After all that was done, there were some long ends that still needed to be lightened, but we had already taken so much living material out that we thought it best to leave them for next time. Removing too much live material from a tree at once can essentially “shock“ the tree, and cause it to respond by producing excessive response growth (suckers) so that the tree can have enough leaves to continue to produce enough energy to support it’s self. Not only are these response suckers (epicormic growth is the fancy term) unsightly, they are also not unsustainable. Response growths that grows very large and heavy very quickly are very weak and will break quite easily. Also, often they grow so fast from undesirable places of the tree that they end up interfering with the tree’s desired structure. This tree would do well to be pruned again in a few years.