You do not always need to hire tree surgeons to keep your trees good-looking and healthy. With proper guidance, you can easily go DIY and trim your trees and save some bucks in the process.
Here are some tips for you from our friends at Tree Services Annapolis.
Why Trim or Prune Your Trees
The Appearance of Your Trees
All tree lovers want to keep their trees in the best condition no matter the season. Without regular trimming and pruning, trees can look misshapen and unbalanced but also be unhealthy. To avoid this, you need to give your trees a haircut. Cut the bulky branches and thin out the limbs so they look great. Trimming and pruning helps increase the demand for a property.
Trimming vs. Pruning
Trimming can be done on trees but is typically done on bushes. With trimming, you are cutting the ends of branches to give the tree a shape and an aesthetic look. With pruning, you are cutting off branches or parts of branches for the health and the look of the tree. By doing too much trimming, you can have lots of small branches grow at the ends of limbs and make the leaves very dense. That might look good but can be bad for the tree by reducing air flow and increasing the chance of moisture retention and disease.
The Aesthetics of Your Landscape
Unwanted and uneven branches can prevent rainwater and sun rays from reaching the flowers and grass under your trees, inhibiting their regular growth as a result. To make sure that enough moisture and sunlight go through the tree branches, regular pruning is always necessary. It also reduces the chance of mold and disease by allowing more air through.
The Health of Your Trees
Without trimming and particularly pruning, overgrown and unwanted branches could make your trees weaker and there is also the question of survival. Pruning involves removing interfering, diseased branches. This process helps in keeping your trees strong and full of life with a healthy structure.
Safety
Regular tree trimming/pruning is also necessary for the safety of your property. In a severe rainstorm or heavy winds, the limbs and the branches could easily fall from above and harm your property, especially the roof. In worst case scenarios, your family members could badly get wounded. The existence of risky branches is another reason to trim your trees periodically.
Encourage Fruit Production
Healthy trees always provide healthy fruit. (Assuming it is a fruit tree) On the other side, dead branches and limbs are the perfect home of insects and pests that could damage your trees health.
Tree Trimming Tools and Techniques
The process usually requires loopers and trimmers though there are many other tree trimming tool. If you are going DIY to save money you would need a helmet, safety goggles, and gloves for protection. This is not a difficult task, just follow these steps –
- Trim during the dormant period
- Think about the right size of branches
- Remove the weak branches only
- Try to shape the young branches
- Avoid pruning too far from the trunk or too close
- Your first cut should be one foot away from the collar of the branch where it meets the trunk. Make the cut partway through the underside of the branch
- Then move around 1” further out and cut through the branch’s top till the limp comes off. If you have done it right, you will notice a clean split between the cuts
- Make your last cut through placing the trimming tools by the branch bark ridge near the trunk and cut downwards right outside of the branch collar. If you are handling a thinner branch with a narrow angle, keep cutting upwards from the bottom so that you do not end up damaging the branch collar.
Good luck with your projects. If you need help, such as the tree being too big, contact a professional company. They will be cheaper than your hospital bills if anything goes wrong.