Cedar dead wood or not?

[Patchwork]

I was taking out a few storm damaged limbs today in a cedar of lebonan, and the guy asked me to take out any dead/dying limbs and branches that would come down in wind, so seeing a few with no needles and die back on the tips i started to remove the ones over the path. now looking at these branches, they had no needles on them, bark flaking on the tips ect. and typically these branches had no laterals, just a fan like at the tips. after taking the ends off and starting cutting hand held sections up to the tree stem, the wood seemed far from dead, had a very resiny smell about it and was a decent colour. what dose this mean? was i wrong in taking the branch off?

[MattyF]

dead wooding is straight forward if the branch is dead remove it ...if your making a call to remove dieing branches, if you have major tip die back its pretty safe to say in a few years that branch will be dead so reducing to sound wood from my experience with cedars is a waste of time...as they will layer them selfs with the dominant branches competing and killing others....remove the branches with die back unless there is a very healthy lateral to take bak to...any pics ?

[Patchwork]

i wish i had my camera, but it wasnt just one or 2 the tree was say 50ft, pretty skinny cos of a fair bit of competition, and had about 9 or 10 of these reasonable 3m long limbs with no needles on at all. like i said i removed about 2 over a path way. left the others just incase, going back to top a leylandii on friday so i told the guy i wasnt 100% sure. is this just the natural growth of cedar or lebonon? when u look at larger trees it seems to have big but not many large limbs with big "plates" of needles on the end. and many many branch stubs up the stem. this is my first propper paid pruning job and i really dont wanna damage the tree by removing what seems like totally sound wood. and about the laterals, i didnt see any at all

[Marc]

Pics would be intresting, take a camera if you can when you go back.

 

I only ever do major dead wood and generally only when targets are under the tree.

 

Sounds like you did the right thing taking out the obviously dead stuff, tell the client you think other limbs may be dying back and to monitor it, or get you back in a year just to check.

[MattyF]

no needles=dead

[Mr Ed]

Cedarwood = remains resinous long after its kicked the bucket.

[Patchwork]

no needles=dead

 

thats what i thought, but the totally sound wood closer at the stem has really thrown me. will re-climb and get pictures when i go back friday, left about 4 as i was not totally sure of what to do.

[vduben]

Pics would be intresting, take a camera if you can when you go back.

 

I only ever do major dead wood and generally only when targets are under the tree.

 

stag headed ash:proud:

[christreeroot]

Deadwood only adds character to a tree, the tree will chose when to get rid of it.....

 

The only time to deadwood is for safety reasons etc:icon14:

[Patchwork]

oh yeah i try to uphold that as much as i can, but it was over a garden/path and the owners have a toddler.