Thank you for this excellent video! I have a new home and landscape and I'm reluctant to call local tree companies to help with pruning after some previous bad experiences. This video has given me the confidence to prune my 1-year-old trees myself, with help from my daughter since I'm in my 70s! Thanks too for the link to certified arborists to manage the trees when they mature.
I just purchased and planted 40 Small Leaf Linden trees in NJ. They seem to be about 2 years old or so (1 to 1-1/2 inch trunk diameter and about 8-10 feet tall). I badly needed some guidance regarding young trees pruning/trimming. This video is the best. Shows all I need to know.
What a great mini-lecture with a fab "PowerPoint"! The organization and clarity of your presentation is wonderful. I feel confident to proceed with my acer griseum and, next year an amelanchier. The Gilman book is beautiful. Love it. But probably too much for a backyard, one-tree gardener. Your video helped make it all make sense. Thanks so much, both of you.
Oh, this video was good to find! I have been an arborist since the 1980s. I am always on the lookout for good teaching or sharing materials showing proper pruning methods. I will be sharing this with a lot of folks. I especially appreciate your treatment re main leaders, temporary. branches, and leaving no stubbs. The phrase, "Proper cuts" is my favorite. Michael Dougfir Rural N. E. Calif.
I have always wondered why my trees looked "weird" after 2 years of planting them on my lawn. Thank you so much for this helpful video. Gotta get my shears and do it this weekend before they start flowering in the Spring.
Thanks for a great video. I needed good clear information on how to prune and train my young plum tree, and this is the best I've found. Absolutely wonderful!
Should I prune temporaries & leaders during summer solstice to stunt growth or does it not matter because although pruning from late summer through early winter promotes vigorous growth, the growth will not be at the branches pruned, but in the areas I WANT to grow?
Great videos guys about how to prune young trees but larger trees where landlords take several years to trimming em we need to cut large portions cause it became a problem that's how important is to train them when they're small to keep them in a good shape and perfect balance tnanks to share us these videos are really helpful god bless you guys att Roberto Gomez.
Clear and concise, thank you for an excellent video. When we planted our sycamore here in Oakland, CA, it was six feet tall. We had bought the home, our first, as a fixer and there was not a single tree on the property, and precious few on the block or in the neighborhood. That was in July of 2018. She's now approximately 28 ft tall, lush and beautiful. Our daughter can climb into her. She changed our barren backyard into a welcoming green space with greater bird and insect life, interesting vertical spaces, and changing moods of light and sound as the sun moves across the sky and the wind rustles her leaves. Each window that looks toward the backyard is also enhanced by her colorful foliage, the life she draws to her, and the dimensionality she creates. Though it sounds like I'm laying it on a little too thick, we truly feel she has made our living space and our lives more harmonious, cozy, peaceful. You can imagine how invaluable all of this change in our living space has been since Covid forced us to spend most of our year at home. All of this is to convey how much this tree means to us. We took the advice of a friend who advised us not to make any cuts for five years, to let her thrive. With plenty of sunlight and water, she has certainly thrived in ways. But with 20+ feet of growth in 3 years you can imagine the chaos and the work that needs to be done, as we now understand after being pointed to your video by a knowledgeable contact. We'll begin that work once her leaves fall, perhaps in the next few weeks. Final note, I'm sitting underneath her, cat on lap, as I type this out, the underside of her leaves peacefully coruscating. Paradise. Trees are wondrous!
How awesome! Thanks for sharing your experience with such beautiful imagery - I can picture it. We have 3 young oaks and I’ve been wondering what I need to do to make sure they grow strong and healthy. Saving this video so I can pull it up during the winter! ❤
Mr. Daseley of Las Vegas NV, is kill😢the trees in the 'Vegas Valley is improperly pruning the trees there and someone needs to get in touch to tell him (I can't). Please ask him to look up on Google on how to properly prune the local trees there
Excellent video. I'm definitely going to work on this over the winter of 2018. I wish there was an autumn blaze maple (ABM) example. I have two that have been in the ground since March 2016, about 1.5 inch caliper...V shape and U shape crotches about 12 feet up. Some say the ABM doesn't need a central leader, others say yes. I think the main reason people don't hard prune early on, is b/c 1.) they don't know how and 2.) they don't want to sacrifice a year or two of appearance. Most weekend arborists want lots of growth day one, and immediate shade and privacy. Thanks for posting.
We have a monster like that too, with a permanent branch starting 2ft from the ground and rubbing 60ft up! Now I think removing it will introduce heart rot.
Leave it to the great state of Ca. to produce one of the best Training Young Tree videos available on you tube. Many thanks, super helpful to this newbie from Wisconsin, where these concepts aren’t put in practice by substantial numbers of tree owners and municipalities.
I have a hybrid elm that needs to be pruned and I am afraid (with all young trees not just the elm) that I will prune back too much and kill the young tree. This video helped tremendously and I will start late this fall when the leaves have fallen.
We now have a young Dawn Redwood. I understand that this is a fast growing tree but was told that it requires little to no pruning due to the way it grows, is this true?
I would not agree with everything said in this video. Trees in my opinion should be allowed to grow naturally and the only time i would removed branches is when they are crossing over other branches or have died or diseased .We do not want trees to look like Bonsai trained trees .
Brendan, trees evolved to grow in forests competing for light, and that situaiton creates strong central leaders. Planted in a yard with unlimited light and little or no competition, trees typically send out multiple leaders and often grown too dense or come from the nursery that way. Multiple leaders and overly dense canopies bring catastrophic damage from wind down the road. It is a kindness and an art to shape such trees, and it is a requirement if they are to live long, healthy lives.
If you wanna be a "true Naturalist", you leave them trees to the forest! The moment you start bringing the trees to your environment/yard/garden, you're responsible of pruning them to lower the risk of them damaging themselves, your neighbors (the facilities or people around you), or yourself! Musch the same with having any animals as your pet!
@@7tkjuj Right on. Also, gobs of cash out of pocket addressing mature trees that fail in storms or pose a risk to homes, cars, people etc. paid to climbers & bucket trucks. Waaaaay better & more cost effective to shape & prune when young!
Best pruning video for crape myrtle is by Gainesville Lawnscaping from 2014. The technique of cutting 6-12 inches above the knot made all the difference for me this year. It basically turns a knife into a fork...2 short prongs producing growth. Then the following year cut those knives into short forks of 2. Everything doubles annually, resulting in bushier crape myrtles with more flowers. Before watching that video I had pruned to long solitary knife branches every year, and wondered why the results were disappointing.
Thank you for this! Now I understand why people "cut all the branches off" of trees. I used to be confused and frustrated when I saw pruned trees before. This gives me a much deeper understanding of how God "prunes" us to be more like Christ as we yield to the Holy Spirit to be that "tree planted by the rivers of water" mentioned in Psalm 1. In order to grow and produce as we should, we have to have proper structure and that requires a lot of cutting! This helps me as a parent also.
Now that countless communities across the continent are loosing their American Ash tree collections to greed of Emerald Ash Borers. Out of the thousands of new replacement that have, or will be planted locally. Each will inevitably require structural pruning over their first 15 years of life. So todays seasoned Arborist charged with career of maintaining poorly structured trees, that themselves had never received Formative Pruning after planted over last 50 years to replace Diseased Elms. Its now time for our era to help usher in a great needed change to Arboricultural industry. Keep in mind Josh, a trees first 20 years is everything. And most important years for radially outward root growth from root ball, is first three after installation. Best incentive of all is proven fact, maturing trees that had been structurally pruned for one main leader when young. Then survive horrible gutting out pruning events later in life by clueless Landscapers. Just look at the oldest living trees one sees today, and how they shout good structure. Another fact is, back years ago tree varieties sold by nurseries were much more naturally "Apical dominant", compared to todays cultivar clones selected instead for brightest fall colored leaves.
