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  1. Mossy Dell

    Heading vs Reduction Cuts on Temporary Branches on Young Trees?

    I agree with the sentiment of not torturing trees or going against their nature. But I think we all also know that for most trees being grown in the open is not how they evolved. Without the pressure of other trees, they grow too thick, too wide, and form too many codoninant stems. I think they...
  2. Mossy Dell

    Heading vs Reduction Cuts on Temporary Branches on Young Trees?

    Bart, I agree honeylocusts are hard to train to a central leader. The one I planted in front of my house four years ago, no way. I have tried, but it got away from me. The one I really posted about, it is central leader now, and I am trying to keep it so. But from old ones I have seen in...
  3. Mossy Dell

    Heading vs Reduction Cuts on Temporary Branches on Young Trees?

    Merle, I hear you. I wish orchardists would adopt the simple Gilman/ISA terminology on cuts. Only three: removal, reduction, heading. Instead, they talk about thinning cuts, for instance, and spend half the time explaining what they mean. A game I play is to mentally convert their terminology...
  4. Mossy Dell

    Heading vs Reduction Cuts on Temporary Branches on Young Trees?

    Thanks, ATH. That is helpful. And a great publication! But when you say in making a heading cut "I try to prune at the node at that [bud] scar," you'd cut just above the bud there, right? I assume the scar, just below the bud, is your reference. The publication shows a bud just above the scar...
  5. Mossy Dell

    Heading vs Reduction Cuts on Temporary Branches on Young Trees?

    Thanks, ATH. Yes, talking about lateral branches but ideally ones that point more in the direction of the dominant leader that was taken. Lately I have been thinking that that's MY assumption—although Gilman tends to picture that, I'm not sure he ever says a more lateral branch cannot be cut...
  6. Mossy Dell

    Heading vs Reduction Cuts on Temporary Branches on Young Trees?

    I am training a number of young, small shade and fruit trees, many in their second to third year here. Having done a deep dive into Ed Gilman's work, I have been trying to retain low branches for as long as possible, using reduction cuts. The species include red and white oaks, honeylocusts...
  7. Mossy Dell

    Structural question on a crape myrtle

    SEAN, do you first drill a pilot hole? No. 10 screw? So it must be long enough to go through one trunk, but how far into the other?
  8. Mossy Dell

    Structural question on a crape myrtle

    It is a bark flake. No surface roots. There could be ones circling below, however, as I didn't root shave it. I had not read Gilman on that yet! On a 30ish year old maple nearby, I recently cut away a few surface strangle roots. The previous owner, based on his lack of structural pruning of the...
  9. Mossy Dell

    Structural question on a crape myrtle

    Thanks, colb, and everyone who has pitched in. I like the multiple trunk look but prefer 3 trunks for aesthetics and for giving room for the tree to develop. But I'm pushing the issue here because I am afraid that in time two of the four trunks will split. I get the impression here that crape...
  10. Mossy Dell

    Structural question on a crape myrtle

    So do you think below the surface there's a girdling root? Because you see this a lot with pot planted crapes? Or something on this tree?
  11. Mossy Dell

    Structural question on a crape myrtle

    Thanks, Stumpsprouts. I have been limbing it up for view. From inside the house it's hard to look through furniture, the porch railing, and that tree to see if anyone's in the driveway.e We get ferocious winds here from the north. The crape is on the SE edge. Wind from the north does shoot...
  12. Mossy Dell

    Structural question on a crape myrtle

    Thank you, Russell. I hadn't thought of that. Another option!
  13. Mossy Dell

    Structural question on a crape myrtle

    First post here, from SW Virginia, the beautiful Blue Ridge. I am a guy who loves trees and tends a lot of them on our retirement property of 7 acres. Over the years I've taken a few classes or tree workshops. My father became a nurseryman where I grew up, in Florida, but after I left. Just...
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