August, your soft spoken humility paired with years of experience makes your words priceless. Taking the time to explain your process is music to me ears, but then again I am intimately interested in trees and tree work. Thank you kindly for so freely giving of yourself.
August thank you! This is great, not boring at all. Very interesting. People are ignorant because no one is willing to make this effort and teach. Your thoughtful funny approach is fabulous. Stop apologizing, smart people get it and idiots never will, so don't worry about that. You are providing an excellent public service. This is exactly what the web is all about and we are grateful. Michel Pariseau, Haddam Neck CT
I recommend a few sessions binging HeronsBonsai here on youtube. Techniques to direct energy, force back budding, air-layering to get a big fat NEW tree. I've been keeping some volunteer weed maples, elms, mulberries, hackberry, etc... under control for 11 years. They're about 6-8 feet tall with 13 inch trunks on the maples. They look like their parents but short. I disassemble them with air layers instead of hard chops. I get a fat bonsai out of them instead of firewood.
I totally agree August, managing expectations and educating the client is probably 80% of the job, and it’s tiring, but it’s all part of the work. So much easier when the brief is a dismantle and removal. Good work and a good video!
I always discourage my customers from crown reduction. People seem to want to do that a lot but it creates weak branch structure and shocks the tree. Its cool that August knows this side to it. Not just a removal guy
Fantastic content August. These are the types of videos that educate homeowners and tree workers and improve the industry overall. I do understand why it gets old trying to educate people so I really appreciate the time you took.
As always - you cut an honest groove. (Straight-talk) Love it. Pruning shows who is a master arborist, understanding-tree physiology, tree hormone dynamics, root zone ecology, species specific compartmentalization/response to pruning injury, tree anatomy...and then getting all that across to your clients...in a way where they don’t “glaze over”...ohhh and then you have landscapers who really love to apply all kinds of fancy broad leaf weed killer on top of the root zone of the trees you care for...got to love it.
Ignorance is the bane of our existance... I see the frustration and although educating the public and your client's may seem to be in vain; it is not. Imparting knowledge is the most important thing that we can do as human beings for each other and is the very core of our survival as a species. CONTINUE TEACHING EVERYTHING YOU HAVE LEARNED, WE NEED IT. THANK YOU! 🌴Puerto Rico,USA🌳
Absolutely not dry and boring, in my opinion! There are many of us who are in the process of learning about this and/or are deeply interested in it. Make the videos that you prefer to make, but there is definitely an appetite for this type of information.
This video deserves more likes! This man is educating. How many tree lovers out there talk about saving trees yet they don’t watch none of these videos. Save the planet save the planet! Where are you all, not here. Hahah-Just as I was making this comment He said educating. I enjoy learning keep up the random thoughts and rambles, I appreciate’em, I wish I was a spider on a hat.
Seriously thank you for this. Very informative, I had no idea how intricate pruning a tree is especially dealing with tree space and layering nearby trees.
I don't know about anyone else August but, I very much appreciate you taking the time and effort to post up this video. I have some experience with pruning and anything I can soak up from someone who is as knowledgeable as you is a huge help, thank you! And yes, I do my best every time to educate the customer about their trees. Sometimes it is very well received, sometimes not so much..... 🤷🏻♂️ Great job by you and your crew! Keep yourselves safe! Randy
As someone who used to be the confused homeowner and is slowly entering this field of work, Please please please talk more about this type of stuff. I don't think anyone is asking for a free education but there are plenty of us who will happily soak up this wealth of information and more, It doesn't have to always be an exciting high risk removal video.
This may be boring for you, but as a rancher I own a lot of trees that I want to keep around but can't afford to pay an expert like you guys to help me with so I do my own pruning and removal as needed and I lean heavily on your advice when making decisions about cutting anything. I would love to see indepth (dry boring education) videos on how and why you make the cuts you make. Thanks for the education you already provide on your channel and I look forward to learning more in the years to come.
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." - William Blake I love'em, I admire them, I climb them, I hunt out of them, I grow them, I cut'em up for firewood it's good to know you still care for them properly. I truly admire people that know their craft and believe in it and educate people. Bravo to you and the crew, #treelife Body, Mind, Spirit
It’s great that you share your knowledge. Not dry one bit. It takes many years to learn as much as you and in this business we will never learn it all. Tree Life!!
I love watching your videos man. I’m a diesel/equipment mechanic and do lots of chipper and bucket/dump body truck repairs. Deal with many tree guys out on the road. Stay safe up there.
I am so glad you made this video! I have been looking for videos on pruning and trimming trees that were made by an arborists. I find your videos to be very interesting and educational.
August : I don't know how old you are but I'm 70 and as the year's have passed I've come to understand that old saying : " With Age comes wisdom " , Some can live a life time and learn nothing and others inspire us maybe , not so much with their words , as with the work they do. I can understand how People who see you work and marvel how you are able to bring out such beauty , and think : " OH I could do as well ? " How often have I watched an artist paint a beautiful Landscape , and think the same thing , until I spend the money for The Oil Paint , or Water , and Paintbrushes , when you've got it all , and take a brush in hand , and then think : " Now what do I do ? " Jack Ps . I live in Venice Florida , a whole 2000 + Miles away , Keep up the good work .
Good pruning starts when you draw up your landscape plan. You have to have a solid understanding of what the plant requires for sunlight/shade, moisture, wind resistance, clearance laterally and vertically, (pay attention to the utilities overhead!) cold hardiness, chilling requirements, root invasiveness, and the shape of its natural growth habit. You have to understand your microclimates around your house, and the microclimates created by other plants in your future landscape. You have to appreciate your abilities as a homeowner to either do regular maintenance or afford to hire regular maintenance to keep your plants healthy and attractive. If you choose wisely, good early training results in modest maintenance requirements, like selecting and training a puppy. I have the privilege of living in my present house in South Central Montana for 20 years this month. I have 10 fruit trees that I have planted and trained from saplings and they only need modest maintenance work, but I have learned the hard way what my climate, slope, aspect, weather, soils and existing large trees will allow. I would love a Honeycrisp apple, a Bing cherry, Red Flame grapes, and an Alberta peach, but reality dictates a Halared apple good for -30F, a Bali sour cherry (we picked 100 pounds this year!) Blue Valiant grapes, and American plums. Nurseries will be glad to sell you plants that will not fit your space requirements, or have no hope of surviving and flourishing in your soils or climate zone. Mine climate zone is a USDA Zone 3, but a lot of years have Zone 4, or Zone 5 winters that lull you into thinking you can get away with plants suitable for those zones. (“Do you feel lucky, punk? Well do you?!”) Then reality comes roaring back out of the arctic and you get a climactic bitc4-slap that leaves you with a pile of firewood and arborist chips the next spring. My Sunset Magazine Zone 11 in Las Vegas was equally unsympathetic to vegetative desire and unrealistic optimism.
Sometimes it's good to get it said ! Thanks for walking us through it and showing the gentle side to some of your Jobs Less is More Like one pot cooking it just works
As an arborist of 30+ years, I feel this video should be required by the ISA as material to watch when starting a career as a tree dude/dudette. You have captured in 12:07 the essence of tree pruning, which in ten years will have paid dividends for the homeowners, the next tree crew, and for the entire industry because it becomes a yard that everyone else in the neighborhood points to as “that’s what I want my trees to look like!”
Took me 5 years before I felt comfortable to prune any tree. Amazing that you are thousands of miles away and the theory of correct pruning is exactly the same and also the effort to try and school clients on correct pruning g
was in nz few years back, at a company who had 2 very good pruners, can reduce a tree an realy looked natural" silky saws n secatures. they made me better. good vid cheers
"beautician not magician" pithy! I think I totally understand at least 95% what you are saying... and can see how that could all get weary after so many years. However...... this "boring" rambling of 30+ years experience by a conscientious professional with integrity like yourself is a fascinating education for me!! Thanks!
Perhaps it is an uneducated approach, but I find that sometimes to figure out what you want to do with a tree that has seen little attention, is to just start wailing on it from the outside with some restraint and still without much of a plan, then after you can better see the shape that is available within the mess, and can discover a plan that you want, then approach the thing to produce the form that works for you...and also hopefully for the homeowner as well. Hopefully the initial wailing hasn't done undesirable damage. Those guidelines that were mentioned at the start of the vid are good to know, thanks. Standing back at some distance from time to time to take a look and measure progress is helpful for me. How to look at things is an element of all visual arts, including pruning.
I really enjoy pruning, some days it's nice to step back from the excitment and get artistic. The amount of appreciation customers show when you nail it is always worth while! Have a safe day 🤙🏼
Not boring, it's a pleasure to watch someone who knows how to do it right. We as viewers appreciate you and your crew sharing your knowledge. I'm for sure not going up no tree with a chainsaw, but I enjoy watching you do it.
Thanks for sharing this. That’s the type of pruning I do at home in our orchard of fruit trees. My cutting routine is this: suckers, dead, dying, disease, crossing, bad angles, and too tall. After all that is done, pruning for production is fairly easy. After watching your videos, it makes me want to get a drone and some lines out there. If I wasn’t pruning so that all the trees could be picked from the ground, I would totally do it because it looks like so much fun there. Edited to add that this is exactly the type of video that would help me do a better job in my home orchard. Feel free to make more of these with different trees and more details, please.
Thanks August. I now know what to do with one of my trees. Your explanation was enlightening. Didn't realize your business did detailed trimming as shown in this video.
For me as a home owner I do not think this subject is dry or boring. I do my own yard work and maintenance therefore this is a helpfull video , infact maybe a Home/property owner do and don't video for us "capable " D.I.Y. folks maybe a good idea!!!??? I love all your content August You were made for this
Thank you for this video. I find it so fascinating how trees are cut and pruned. Thanks for sharing this even though you feel exhausted about it, as you said
Thanks for taking the time for explaining how you talk to customers about pruning all of us have to do this even though it’s not exciting for video but I appreciate it also like watching you take out the big treesThanks
That's is the separation between being in a profession versus being a professional. Amen August! Thanks for the words of wisdom. Sending to love to you all from PHX!
I wish more homeowners would address their landscaping. It seems to me that trees and shrubs are planted, then left alone, until they die. Appreciate your lessons ....
Nice videos August... It's not all about cranes, rigging and big removals. There is also some beauty in good pruning jobs and save trees where we can! We need more pruning videos on youtube!
Great video! Thanks August and team! It’s nice to see Arborists respecting and educating pruning standards! For upcoming arborists like me that are growing in this industry, we need good role models!
Great content, as always!!!! Pruning is such an important part of this industry. Definitely not dry, I loved this video! Great job! And thank you for your time. Always appreciate the work you put into your videos while you're actually working.
This is the stuff I want to learn. I try to imagine the future of the tree while I'm trimming. It is all about form, symmetry, balance, future growth and strength.
Find this fascinating & interesting. Know doesn’t make “awesome” action pack RU-vid content..... But I’m enjoying this video & knowledge “talk”. 5hanks for publishing the vid, appreciate 🙏🏼 Cheers ✌🏼
I’m really glad you took the time to share all this info. I learned a ton (and now I feel bad for how I “scalped” my trees in the past. Happy to report though that they’ve all grown back strong and are doing well! Lol. 😉) P.S. Talk about God’s grace...
A while ago working as a builder I met a guy pruning the trees on a property. Turns out that as a graduate architect, the first job he got was as an apprentice at the gardens of the emperor's palace in Tokyo mainly just pruning and preparing trees for the different seasons. He got the job with pretty much zero experience because they appreciated the attitude and appreciation that his architecture degree would bring! Spent 2 years where his only tools were a folding handsaw and secateurs.
One of the best for informing and educating. Great specimen Maple to show long term sun scalding. All of the points you made seemed to get through clearly. Tnx for all you do.😁
A lot of the average people know just enough to be dangerous:( RU-vid is full of videos that back that statement up! Good that these folks were lucky enough to find someone, like you guys, that have the proper experience/knowledge.
I wish I could have sent this to my neighbor who took it upon himself to BUTCHER my gorgeous red Japanese Maple that my arborist and I were admiring days before. It needed a TINY trim of about foot off a pretty limb touching the side of the house. Now there's a huge hole. I winced when I took a Pic to show my arborist. Now I want to put a hole in my neigh... ok, ok, I'll stop... Maybe I'll just snap his pole... Oh, I mean TREE pole! 😇
Many excellent points. Otherwise you referred to me as similar to the worst evil lol. 😅 Mostly, I operate without removing 1/4 to 1/3 of the foliage but the exceptions to this somewhat arbitrary marker point are very important. Take a 70’ weeping willow with compromised structure and some decay, for example. I have removed 40-60 percent by foliage or buds, to achieve the necessary reduction dose, without cutting over 2.5” diameter. And one must consider the potential response growth in this species, rather than just the foliage remaining the moment after the day of pruning. And we must consider regular dosing as dosage is more important than each dose. Regular medium dosage is better than infrequent heavy dosage (as mentioned in other words in this good video). Why must most pros suggest the other 1/3 rule is necessary. (Referring to leaving a new lead at least 1/3 the diameter of the cut) It is also a general average of the max but otherwise benign or arbitrary, a marker at best, and although, I usually work within it. A 1.5” cut to a 1/4” lead is often better than a deeper 3” cut to a 1” lead, and follows the 1/3 rule better after some time anyway. Time is not up for debate and we can utilize it to cause less damage. Exceptions to many rules, removing rubbing limbs included, must be considered and are quite prevalent in managing trees that are well grown into maturity and having capable yet questionable defects that (possibly) have a poor safety factor.
