mature oak pruning

[vesna]

I have a huge, mature but very healthy  oak tree in  my back garden which  now severely reduces the amount of light and sun we get and the vegetation around the tree. I would like  I to prune it and received two different advice and dramatically different quotes from  two tree  surgeons. One advises to  severely prune the tree to  make the crown much smaller and the other  only lifting of the crown leaving the crown untouched.  If I just lift the canopy will the crown start gowning much faster next year and I will end up with even bigger canopy? Will I not get a lot of suckers  on my lawn? What is your advice?

Thank you kindly for your advice.

Vesna

[MattyF]

Thinning plantations and formative pruning are not really the same thing, please explain how tip thinning causes lion tailing ? Lion tailing is caused by Arb’s given a spec and not been arsed to do a proper job because it’s easier to swing a saw around the bottom of the canopy let a load of light in and go home, I would take great care never to thin a crown reduction.

Edward ,you answered your own question to me in your post.

[Mick Dempsey]

11 hours ago, EdwardC said:

Why is thinning and crown lifting a tree to improve light levels wrong, and how does it create mistrust. They are afterall a current best practice, BS3998 recommend actions for improving light levels.

 

Don't lion tail, it is afterall bad practice, and don't do a bad job it's not necessary. When is the only time you see a reduced/retrenching tree. I don't understand how you create a wind tunnel, and leverage is reduced because you are reducing surface/sail area. However, done badly, lion tailing, whilst resulting in an overall reduction in wind loading, can result in the residual loads being imparted into the branch at a point that is not adapted to the newly imposed loads.

 

BS 3998 does provide guidance on which pruning operations are best for achieving a particular outome, see Table B.1 BS3998

 

Crown reduction can result in a tree with an unnatural form, reduced amenity, and with the potential to create more problems than it solves, moreso than thinning, including dense regrowth. There must be justification for any pruning operation.

To address the whole thinning and crown lifting thing

 

I remember being taught this as a go to response to ‘uneducated clients’ who wanted a tree that cast too much shade or they felt was just too big, to be reduced.

 

‘Lift and thin’ was the mantra, “you’ll be amazed by the extra light, much better than a nasty old reduction”

 

So you instruct prospective clients of this and some clients go ahead with the plan (I mean the tree guy’s been to college and quoted BS3998 Table B1 right?)

 

The work gets done, cut some lower stuff and swing around the inside, cleaning it out a bit.

 

Now it’s at this point the client réalisés that his issues have not been addressed, the tree is still effectively as it was, just with some lower branches cut off. He feels cheated, and pays grudgingly, often paying another firm to come in and do as he wanted in the first place.

 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by Mick Dempsey

[MattyF]

Thing is when do you see mature oaks thin ? When they are declining and retrenching them self.. trees do not thin them selfs naturally, and if you say oh what’s dead wood I can think of three mature pines and cedars that I have spent a lot of time on removing every single bit of dead on , transforming the tree and the client has been very happy .. until within 12 months there has been a strong wind and catastrophic failure from a none defective limb has occurred because by even removing dead wood you have changed the crown dynamics just like thinning.
I have one tree booked in for a thin in the next 3 months , a mature Norway maple , a large co Dominant included secondary limb reduced by 15% and the rest of the crown thinned by 5/10 % and this will be tip thinning and epiccormic ,ie lumps and bumps out of the crown , We will be leaving any large crossing branches unless it’s defective... and the only reason this is being done is because a large beech is being removed and the client does not want an overall reduction on the remaining tree.
Thinning has its places in tree care but it’s very small in my view, if you identify defects on a tree usually the last thing I would recommend would be a thin.

[tree-fancier123]

re - reducing a huge oak, if it's given a good haircut, say 2.5m approx reduction, it won't be as bad again next summer, there will be some epicormic fluffy twigs at the cuts, but the canopy will be smaller and take around 10 years to get back to where it was (hence more light for many years, clear of rooftop etc). The cuts on a reduction (and imo more so the pruning cuts on the trunk from crown lifting) are possible sites for infection from spores of decay fungi, which are mostly released in autumn. For this reason and avoiding drought stress in July/August, and when the tree is coming into leaf, I think if you want to choose when to remove growth (without getting the tree's permission) then choose June, December, January. Otherwise just get it done when the contractor can fit it in - it will be alright anyway hopefully.

Edited November 11, 2019 by tree-fancier123

[Marc Lewis]

Of course, reducing large mature oak trees ruins the look of them imo. Unless the reduction is minimal, but then its hardly worth doing.

[Mick Dempsey]

Is your repeated use of ‘educating clients’ a deliberate attempt to trigger me?
 

I mean usually it works, but you rather overegged it.

 

Cleaning out is a what my old boss would say for what would now pass as a light thin and deadwood.

[tree-fancier123]

32 minutes ago, EdwardC said:

And you'll be able to go back every few years to sort out the weakly attached dangerous branches you've created until you either have killed the tree or the owner wants it removed because of the expense of maintenance, or because it looks like a bird perch

The biggest oak reduction I've seen was done 10/11 years ago. A huge multi stemmed beast, it does not have 'weakly attached dangerous branches' at least they don't seem to be separated after a big blow. Maybe you wouldn't want to climb above the old cuts, but we are talking 15 to 20 years before the regrowth would be big enough to need that. It is possible to swallow the received wisdom and constantly regurgitate current thinking, but the minds that have made their branch of treework text processing aren't necessarily pragmatic.

[benedmonds]

Oaks naturally retrench in old age and a reduction can often be done leaving the tree looking good. It might not be the best thing for the tree, but in my experience they seem to cope fine in the short term. Many of our ancient oaks will have been chopped and cut in all sorts of non bs3998 ways over thier 600+ years.. and are doing fine. As long as plenty of leaf is left.

 

Anything that lives as long as an oak has to be able to adapt and take some abuse.. 

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by benedmonds

[maybelateron]

12 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Now it’s at this point the client réalisés that his issues have not been addressed, the tree is still effectively as it was, just with some lower branches cut off. He feels cheated, and pays grudgingly, often paying another firm to come in and do as he wanted in the first place.

I have had this same problem, however, after doing proper reduction work.

We did a reduction on a Copper Beech, using my mewp. I had made every effort to impress upon the customer that we would not be "chopping lots off the top", explained the problems that can follow overpruning/removing too much foliage. The tree looked good when we finished, having had as much as we thought was sensible removed. Customer came home, clearly thought we should have taken more off, ie savaged a nice tree.

[Mick Dempsey]

1 minute ago, maybelateron said:

I have had this same problem, however, after doing proper reduction work.

We did a reduction on a Copper Beech, using my mewp. I had made every effort to impress upon the customer that we would not be "chopping lots off the top", explained the problems that can follow overpruning/removing too much foliage. The tree looked good when we finished, having had as much as we thought was sensible removed. Customer came home, clearly thought we should have taken more off, ie savaged a nice tree.

Beech are a singular tree reduction wise, sometimes explaining (not educating!) how an superficially similar tree like a hornbeam can withstand a heavy reduction whilst a beech cannot recover any kind of form for years can be hard.

 

But that’s part of another debate about treating all trees the same.

Not really relevant to the debate but I had a medium/small copper beech to reduce as part of a larger job a couple of years back. Now I’m not one to question a client but I did fight for a more sympathetic reduction, back to growth points blah blah. Didn’t look too bad afterwards.

Passed by last week, he’d got on a ladder and totem poled it, it had come out in a flush of new growth, bit dismal looking, but he’s probably happy as Larry.

 

Dont know the moral of the story, but there we are.