Well, in a couple of weeks, assuming no bizzare occurences, I will be a brand
new homeowner!  Houseplants seem a little tame compared to the possibility
of owning trees!  And I'll have some trees to trim, since I'm buyng a house
that has been a rental for years and needs a lot of yardwork done.  


So what do you all know about tree trimming?  At least one tree is going to
be taken out completely, and others will need a pretty good haircut.

33 responses total.

What size and kind of trees?

Well, there are some leafy-fall-off-autumn trees, and some pointy-green
trees...   

The trees I'm mostly planning on trimming are some kind of evergreen, the kind
that aren't obviously pine trees (they sort of have needles, but not quite,
and they don't have a wide base like a pine).  Those are right close to the
house and probalby should just be cut down, but I think they would look great
with a bit of trimming (all the branches below roof level, lending a rather
Seussian look.  Those are about twice the height of the house.  There are two
of what appear to be apple trees, 2 or 3 real pine trees of various sizes,
and a big deciduous out front that just needs to be cleaned around (no
trimming).  Aside from that, I''m not sure, since I haven't closed yet.

Keep your trees out of the path of oncoming cars.

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I think "Sunset" has booklets on pruning trees which gives all kinds of
general advice.  These are the paper covered books you can find in most garden
or landscaping places.  

The only thing I know about tree trimming is that you have to do it either
before or after the trees become active, that is in the fall or the early
sprig. So if you don't get to trimming them before they start to leaf out, wait
until fall or you could damage the trees.  The evergreens are the same,  even
though they never loose their needles.  <I would probably base the time on when
the decidious trees leaf out>  Call a nursery and ask one of the people there
if you dont find a good book.

Well, there's some trimming ahead.  I finally got the house.  More than that,
there's going to be some innocent trees murdered.  ;)

OK, I have the house, and here is the situation:

A number of junky trees need to be removed, usually from awkward places. 
These are Box Elders, I'm told, and their main distinguishing characteristic
is that they never grow straight.  Then branches start falling off.

One is arched *over* the power line into the house... it has a main branch
that cracked a while ago and now hangs down.  Edison, strangely enough, said
they didn't think it needed trimming (this is after being told that Edison
would deforest Minnesota if they found a tree touching a wire somewhere).
So I either need a tree company to come and remove trees and money from me,
or perhaps some scaffolding?  I have access to a chainsaw, so if I could get
up in the air safely I could just disect the trees a couple feet at a time.

This item has been linked from Plants 21 to Intro 21.
(What a coincidence!)  Type "join plants" at the Ok:
prompt for discussion of green, growing things.

You'll enjoy the description of the Box Elder from The Garden Encyclopedia:

"BOX-ELDER. Common name for _Acer negundo_, a degenerate species of
maple, possessing none of the virtues of its relatives except that it
propagates easily from seed and grows rapidly under unfavorable circumstances.
It is therefore  used for windbreaks in the prairie regions, but leaves drop
early after attaining a sickly yellow color and trunk decay follows rapidly
after inuries."

Doesn't sound like its very conducive to family values.

For tree work you should get a tree-lopper-pruner, which is a long pole
(maybe 10 feet - comes apart) with both a saw and a "lopper" at the
end, operated by a rope. If your Box Elder isn't too high, you can lop
and saw off short pieces (but don't lop the wires....).

I'll need to remove trees that are 20 feet tall, and up to 5 inches in
diameter at that height.  the reason that there are 20 foot tall trees 5
inches in diameter at the top is that they are usually broken at that height.

Come to think of it, I had a Box Elder on my lot. It is also called a
Water Maple. It has Maple racemes, etc., but the wood is very soft,
unlike most maples. They grow very fast - and then fall over. Mine almost
creamed my sailboat. I cut it out, but new shoots kept coming back up
from the stump. I think I have it licked, now. I'd suggest, if you get
a professional, that you have it taken down completely. You won't be
happy with it over the long run.

Trimming evergreens...we always trim them hard in the spring.  Anytime in the
spring when the weather is conducive to being outdoors.  We cut them back hard
and we seem to have no problem with them dying off.  Occasionally, (sp)  we
do get a branch that turns all brown and yucky.  We just go and trim it out.
We do make sure that they have plenty of water for a week or two afterward.
I would just start hacking away.  

We have two evergreens , make that 3, here at the farm.  These trees have not
been tended for upwards of 30 years.  I just came in and cut the smallest
bushy one back hard in August.  It is growing great guns now.  The two really
tall ones were practically made bald just about a month ago.  They, also are
doing just fine.  I did not cut the tops of these off, but the one on the side
of the house had branches that touched the ground and it now has 2 and 1/2
feet of bare trunk showing.  When I say, cut back hard, I mean it.  Both trees
are doing remarkably well.  So well, in fact, that you would never know the
branches from them formed their own 3 hour bonfire.  But, justMHO.

I don't know if you still need help, scott, but I've taken six trees out
from around our house and actually took a course on pruning trees and
bushes.  If you still need some advice, e-mail me.

I'm doing OK.  I've decided it's OK to just cut off limbs I don't like, and
as long as the tree doesn't end up massively out of balance it will be fine.


I'm still in the stage of removing a 3-5 inch tree every couple of weeks. 
I've got about 5 or so left, then a couple biggies.  I think I'm going to have
to call the experts on one particular eyesore, but rest are located in places
I can handle without causing too much property damage.  ;)

Heh, we'll have to get together to compare lumberjack stories sometime. :)

I didn't have any decent pruners so I used the chain saw.  Trees are now
nicely balanced and healthy...no brown out at all!

Well, I finally got to take out a full size tree this weekend.  It was too
hot to fertilize the lawn, so I figured it would be a *great* day to kill a
tree.  ;)

Anyway, I had a big eyesore weed tree, about 16" diameter, probably 50 or 60
feet tall.  I borrowed a 16' ladder and a chain saw from my Dad, and went
cutting.  This tree wasn't around anything important, except other, decent
trees, but you can't just fell one raw.  You have to climb, and cut off all
the limbs so that it doesn't cover a half-mile long area when it falls.  So
I managed to cut everything off, with no harm to me.  Most of the upper
cutting was done with a bow saw, because it was easy to carry up into the tree
and to manuever.  If it hadn't been such a trashy tree, I probably would have
needed the chainsaw instead.  I finally got all the major limbs down to stubs,
and proceeded to fell the 16' tall remainder.  Heh.  I landed it the exact
opposite way I had planned, almost killing a fence and some bushes.  Luckily
the neighbor didn't mind, and the fence is going to be removed anyway.

In a year I'll have firewood!  Now all I need is a fireplace.  

heh! if you want to build it of stone, I could loan you a book and you could
have all the stone you want...you haul!  Congratulations on the successful
tree downing!

Yowee - scary stuff having the tree go the wronng way.
This is too late to do you any good, but I think you're supposed to cut a
wedge-shaped notch almost halfway through the tree on the sidethat you 
want it to go. Then you cut from the back side, with a straight cut.

Yes, steve, I did that, but apparently not quite right.  ;)

Yes, the wedge helps, but I've found wrapping a rope around the tree at least
two thirds of the way up and having a couple of people around to pull the tree
in the direction you want it to go works even better.

I did that on another one, and it worked.  Actually, I did it all myself,
tying the rope to another tree, making it as tight as possible, then pulling
the center out perpendicular.  That took advantage of some simple geometry,
giving me a great mechanical advantage.  I'd pull on the rope a bit, run over
and cut some more, then try the rope again, until it leaned over.

Yesterday I went and bought a rock climbing harness so that I can be a little
safer when I go for the high branches.  The next tree or two need to be taken
out in smaller pieces.  :)

One thing we learned in taking out a dead tree in our yard is to make sure
the trunk is solid before using your harness to go up further. My husband,
Don, was about 25 feet up a dead tree that needed to be removed in sections.
He decided to shake the tree to see if the next part he intended to climb
was safe.  When he did, the top 15 feet of the tree broke off and went 
through the crown of the seerviceberry tree right next to it before spearing
the ground.  It was quite impressive, but I'm awfully glad he wasn't riding
that section down.

Yeah, I am careful about what parts of the tree are safe to climb on.

So did you get all your trees down, Scott?  If you get on the web and do
a search on "tree climbing", you will get some very interesting hits.  I
also have a book and a couple catalogon this.
 
We also took down 4 walnuts :-( this spring.  We used 300' of rope and
a Subaru to help persuade the trees to fall where we wanted them:  Worked
great.  We took them down whole as we had plenty of clear space.

I'm behind on tree removal.  After I do the gutters it is the next project.
I'm going to buy a ~30' ladder to get at a couple of the tricky ones, but the
worst may need pro help.

If you have a lot of trees droping leaves on your roof, get gutters with
commercial size down-spouts (BIG)  Mine are the standard, dinky, residential
size spouts and I have to clean them out after every rain!!

The commercial-size downspouts are a good idea.  Does anyone know whether
screens over your gutters help or increase the problems?

I've tried the screens and have not had good luck with them.  The leaf
stems get stuck in the screen and when you do want to clean out the
gutter, and that time will come, the screens get in the way!
 
I've seen one gutter design that looks promising.  However, at $6.10
per foot, it's a bit too pricy for me.  It has a cover with a slit
at the far end.  The end of the cover has a radius that goes back into
this slit.  Rain water flows off the roof, over the gutter's cover
and then follows the radius back inside the gutter.  Debris large
enough to cause trouble, supposedley, can not negotiate the radius
at the end of the cover and just falls to the ground.  Clever.

OK, an update on a rather extreme "trim".  The box elder I cut down from right
in front of the house 2 or 3 years ago seems finally to be dead!  These trees
will come right back from a stump, so I had to check every couple weeks for
new shoots to cut off or poison.  Today I noticed that the grass around the
stump is showing a darker green over what looks like the root pattern.

Jim pulled out the ones we cut down, using a winch, and they stayed dead. 
Tree of heaven was more persistent.

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