Training Young Trees

I think there is little NEED for trees to have a central leader, as long as weak unions can be avoided.

Sometimes I prefer removing a central leader, even for my own trees.

Different deal, but I have 3 purple beech about 10 feet apart from one another with a triangular arrangement. I'm thinking about bending all 3 tops in the next couple of years to graft all the tops together to form one top with 3 trunks. And I may not train the new top to be a central leader. I may let the upper twigs develop mulitiple leaders for a cool looking climbing tree that grandkids can enjoy like 20 years from now.

Even with conifers, I think some of the best looking are ones that lost a main leader and have several instead.

Either option is fine by me.
 
Left to their own devices, all trees become decurrent when they are surrounded by sunlight. Whether it is a forest tree which has outgrown its neighbors and spreads out when it has breached the canpoy, or the same species tree stuck in an open lawn. The forest tree that successfully made it to the top grew both a central lead up to the top and then broke out into as many codominant branches and trunks as it could because that will increase its leaf area for its benefit and to shade out its rivals. That is the natural success strategy for trees, and has worked for 10 million years, but it also spells disaster when taken from their environment and stuck in a city treelawn.

Poorly structured trees in nature fail and improve the species by reproducing less, and decaying to build soil. Poorly structured trees in the landscape fail and smash Mercedes-Benzes and lead to lawsuits and power outages.

As far as pruning work goes, there is nothing which contributes more toward sustainability of the urban forest than timely and appropriate structural pruning. Don't confuse pruning for a strong structure with limbing up trees for forest production (or low-end street clearance). In the proper space you could have a well structured tree with no clear trunk at all.
 
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Poorly structured trees in nature fail and improve the species by reproducing less, and decaying to build soil. Poorly structured trees in the landscape fail and smash Mercedes-Benzes and lead to lawsuits and power outages.

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If you don't mind, I'd like to use this quote in the future, with your permission! Hilarious and so true!

-Tom
 
hey I was saying to my fellow workers this season that it seems like the special varieties produced for nurseries seem to have more defects and v-crotches.

one property had numerous varieties of Red Maple (acer rubrum), but they were all of these special fall color varieties; 'autumn sunset', red this and that, sunburst, whatever, lots I hadn't heard before. They are all Acer rubrum to me. Anyway, every tree had an enormous amount of tight v-crotches to fix.

I concluded that maybe these varieties pushed by man have more structural defects in them and not as strong as the natural tree in nature. Which is what some of you are saying.

another example would be the bradford pear...
 
I've noticed that in general Acer rubrum has lots of structural defects if not pruned when younger. I think its the nature of the tree because of its opposite branching structure and fast growth.
 
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hey I was saying to my fellow workers this season that it seems like the special varieties produced for nurseries seem to have more defects and v-crotches.

one property had numerous varieties of Red Maple (acer rubrum), but they were all of these special fall color varieties; 'autumn sunset', red this and that, sunburst, whatever, lots I hadn't heard before. They are all Acer rubrum to me. Anyway, every tree had an enormous amount of tight v-crotches to fix.

I concluded that maybe these varieties pushed by man have more structural defects in them and not as strong as the natural tree in nature. Which is what some of you are saying.

another example would be the bradford pear...

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Absolutely true david, plus they have poor disease resistance
 
I don't mind the varieties of callery pear nearly as much as I dislike maple varieties. At least the pears don't achieve the size of the maples before self-destruction. I've been trying to rein in the planting of the 'Armstrong' or 'Freeman' maple where I work, I believe a cross between Red and Silver maple. Anything which is promoted as "low maintenance" should instead be called "nearly impossible to maintain".
'Armstrong' maple is a good example of a lousy set of choices for arborists, either hammer the poor tree into slightly better structure, or leave it a pretty, but doomed tree. No thanks.
 
Guy, glad you agree.

what the heck is happening in your avatar?

overpaidmoni...:
thanks for the input on the varieties!
 
I kinda like the Freeman's I have worked with; maybe i got a good batch; "hammer" is not a verb I associate with pruning. Ya gotta break some eggs...and think in tree time...

and october glory is an epidemic waiting to happen, as most are pretzelrooted.

avatar that was after the lightning system was installed, collecting samples of orchids and stuff from monster live oak in fl. Hayauchi very useful tool in a 120' wide tree..
 
avatar: oh okay, looked like some shiny aluminum or bright white wax painted on the main trunk, i didn't and don't know what that was.
 
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avatar: oh okay, looked like some shiny aluminum or bright white wax painted on the main trunk, i didn't and don't know what that was.

[/ QUOTE ]well the light was off that day but the ring to my right is just a plain old cavity and no the bark of the trunk is average for live oak.
 
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I kinda like the Freeman's I have worked with

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can't argue with that
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I kinda like the Freeman's I have worked with

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applaudit.gif
can't argue with that
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Ha I thought you would pick up on that setup...

And maybe in 2 years i will have that pleasure!
smile.gif
 
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