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Some people think it is perilous if not criminal to prune a tree in bud or leaf. Such dogmatism is absurd and it ignores the advantage to be gained, whether pruning for health or appearance, by distinguishing clearly between dead and live members. Spring pruning gives wounds the benefit of spring growth to quicken healing. "Bleeders" like most of the maples, boxelder, linden, walnut, yellow-wood, and the willows and birches are best left untouched until after their leaves are well out—more because their copious sap is messy to work in than because the trees may "bleed to death." Sugar maples tapped year after year live to ripe old ages. Trees pruned young, to shape their lasting characters, will bear fewer lasting scars than trees shaped late in life. But as with repentance, better prune late than never. Let the home owner approach his first pruning job—a deciduous 15-footer—with this framing thought in mind: in what ways would this tree look different if it were in perfect condition? Obvious at once are any broken or dead branches. Questionable are branches that look crowded or are actually touching one another. More puzzling are a lot of branches and twigs and shoots each of which may have good right to be there but all of which, in the most un-tutored eye, add up to unhealthy overgrowth and confusion. How to proceed? |
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