Tall trees on your property are an excellent source of shade, privacy, and wind protection. They also help boost your home’s beauty and value.
However, like all trees, tall trees need pruning to maintain optimal health and structure. Pruning is also essential for safety reasons.
If one of the tree’s branches becomes too heavy or dies, it could break away from the trunk, injuring nearby persons or damaging property. However, pruning tall trees requires more knowledge and experience than pruning smaller trees.
This blog post explains how to prune tall or large trees as recommended by the experts at Oregon Arborist, a leader in tree pruning service in Lafayette, OR.
How to Trim a Tall Tree
When pruning tall trees to reduce their height, you should make the pruning cuts just above the lateral branches that are not less than one-third the diameter of the tree branch you’re removing.
Make the pruning cuts at a 45-degree angle, slanting away from the tree’s center. This technique helps direct growth outward and avert the development of any weak angles. It’s worth noting that pruning trees for height reduction can be challenging.
You may not manage to completely stop your trees from growing upwards, but you can successfully slow them down. With proper pruning, you can maintain your trees’ health and beauty while keeping them at manageable heights.
The Best Pruning Practices for Tall Trees
If you decide to prune your tall trees yourself, keep the following tips in mind to ensure the best results.
Don’t Make Flush Cuts
Otherwise, you’ll remove the branch collar, which comprises the trunk or parent branch tissue. Cutting into a branch collar means you’ve cut into your tree’s trunk, exposing it to bacterial infection.
Don’t Trim More Than 25% of the Live Crown
Eliminating too much of a tree’s canopy in a single pruning session can adversely impact its growth and health.
Don’t Prune During Summer
Avoid pruning when your trees are active and photosynthesizing. The late fall to winter is the best time to prune most deciduous trees. During this period, you can easily see the overall branch structure, and most pathogens and insects are dormant.
Avoid Topping Tall Trees
When you decide to trim your tall trees to shorten their height or prevent them from touching power lines, avoid topping them. Topping simply involves chopping off the top of a tree.
This practice is detrimental to a tree’s health, as it creates an unhealthy and unsightly branch structure. It leads to a gaping wound that exposes the tree to rot, diseases, and pests. It will also take years to restore the tree’s beautiful shape after topping.
Contact Your Local Tree Experts for Assistance
Pruning tall trees is an uphill task that requires skills and experience, so it’s best to leave it to the experts for the best results. You don’t want the broken branches to hurt your loved ones or damage your property. If you need a certified arborist in Lafayette, OR, call our Oregon Arborist team at (503) 899-4166 for a free estimate.