Fused limbs help

[Jimmay]

So I went along to a fairly straight forward crown lift today. Some of the lower limbs were touching the house and the whole tree didn't have that "traditional" shape.

My problem came when i found these two limbs had fused. I was stumped at this point as my plan had been to take the lower one right back into the stem and leave the higher one in as it fills a large space on the far side. I hope the pictures help to make more sense, I tried taking it back to a growth point and It just looked terrible so I went back to where they fuse. Any advise welcome.

[Paul Cleaver]

im glad you stopped there - the top limb could fail if you had taken it further.

 

It would have been better to have not taken the limb back so far - at least cut to a decent lateral higher up the branch - I would have explained to the client in this example that tree shape is not as important as tree health

[Jimmay]

[Jimmay]

Thank you Paul, hard lesson learnt, I haven't charged them for the work yet so I might explain the situation and leave it at that.

[Paul Cleaver]

that's a better pic - ok that does change things - the tree is young and I think you could take both limbs off without causing the tree much damage, and considering how much potential growth the tree has got overall, its better to take them off now than later when the branch diameters will be larger therefore creating a larger wound

[Jimmay]

Thank you very much Paul, I will remove them both, I don't think they will mind too much as the top branch is on the neighbours side.

In future on a more mature tree ill look to leave in what I can if this situation re occurs.

[Paul Cleaver]

Thank you very much Paul, I will remove them both, I don't think they will mind too much as the top branch is on the neighbours side.

In future on a more mature tree ill look to leave in what I can if this situation re occurs.