Pruning

A young tree needs all the nutrition it can get from its leaves to develop strong roots, so during the first year after planting, only broken or dead branches should be pruned.

Sucker growth, young shoots growing from the base of the tree, should be removed at ALL times.

In the second year or third year, if the tree is growing well, structural pruning can be considered and is recommended. Street trees in the cities of Portland and Vancouver require a permit through Urban Forestry to prune.

There are several important keys to properly pruning young trees. Remember, you can always hire a certified arborist, and be sure to take a minute to check out these two great resources before you start pruning: Arbor Day Foundation’s Animated Pruning Guide and Ed Gilman’s Developing a Preventative Pruning Program: Young Trees. With proper structural pruning, your tree will truly become an asset, and living legacy, to the rest of the city.

Never top your tree

Topping is the indiscriminate removal of a tree’s branches to stubs and is perhaps the most harmful tree pruning practice known; yet, topped trees are still a common sight.

Not only does topping result in tree stress, decay, hazard and sunburn; it’s also ugly and expensive. Once you top a tree, you resign yourself forever to a maintenance treadmill as your tree rapidly declines and becomes increasingly costly to care for.

Have you recently planted a fruit tree? Here are the basics of fruit tree pruning.