Thinning Tips - put in your 10p's worth

[Lorry thompson]

Stupid question, but what's lion tailing?

 

Pruning all/most of the twigs along a branch and leaving lots of foliage at the tips if that makes sense? Leaving a branch looking like a lions tail:)

[hazzygawa]

Stupid question, but what's lion tailing?

 

It's cutting all those lion tails off. When they are asleep up there.

 

Think of what a lions tale looks like and now visualise that as a limb on a Tree

[Sambo]

By the time you've done a really thorough crown clean - removed dead/dying/diseased branches, rubbers, crossers, deformed branches those branches growing in odd directions or over-extending - then any thinning required to meet specification is usually minimal - especially with domestic customers.

[David Goss]

Lion tailing is where you take off all the small twigs/branches from each main limb and just leave the tips (it looks like a lions tail). Its not good practice as it puts all the weight and sail on the very ends of the branches making them more likely to snap out in high winds.

[Lorry thompson]

And a nightmare to climb the year after:)

[David Goss]

And a nightmare to climb the year after:)

 

At least you dont get slapped in the face from whippy brances though

[RobArb]

And a nightmare to climb the year after:)

 

I've climbed that many now, I can call myself an expert at getting up them stupid scaffolded poles:lol:

 

Sent from Rob's GalaxySII

[treeseer]

Great advice on using pole tools and working the outer edge. Thinning cuts along with reduction cuts can be part of a good risk management program, IF properly specified and carried out. I often specify 9%, and below 5 or 10 cm, focusing on the outer 25% of the crown.

[Old Mill Tree Care]

By the time you've done a really thorough crown clean - removed dead/dying/diseased branches, rubbers, crossers, deformed branches those branches growing in odd directions or over-extending - then any thinning required to meet specification is usually minimal - especially with domestic customers.

 

The question that this raises is, should we be removing crossing and rubbing branch and branches that grow in odd directions?

 

Rubbers can fuse together making something strong, not in every case I realise.

 

Branch growth in odd directions! Well, why do we consider it to be an odd direction. There are no straight lines or perfect symmetry in trees so maybe the tree has grown these branches deliberately.

I nearly always leave these in place, at the expense of an easy climb.

 

I also consider thinning and reducing to be one and the same. Crown pruning is a system of reducing the volume of branch and leaf NOT reducing the the size (I realise there are exceptions) and this as a by product achieves a thinner more see through crown.

[Dr.Green]

so the moral of the story is to get out to those tips and work it from there .

 

learnt a lesson at the weekend , its not as easy as you may think it is , but time will come ..

 

and working out the old percentage is a tuff one aswell , so far i have learnt that saying you will do a maximum amount and then let the customer say , 'great , im happy with that' and the amount in the tipper , just till i get more confidence to say to myself 'thats enough'

 

just having hard time learning it at the moment , thou i have time unlike maybe some of you who need to get the job done