Trimming the Tree

Most of you probably think winter is a time to take a break from gardening. I disagree. I love to look through plant catalogs and plan my beds and how much I need to save up for new tools. And there is still a good reason to get outside and work a bit: pruning trees is a good winter activity.

I read somewhere that pruning during the hard freeze months (December or January) is good because the tree is not putting energy into growing and it will heal easily. I like pruning in the winter for two reasons. First, I can't bring myself to cut off branches with new, green wood and growing buds. That just seems mean. And second, with no leaves on the tree, it is easy to see what all the branches are doing and which ones need to go while still keeping the overall tree shape and dimensions in mind.

We had a nice day in the middle of this January, so I headed out in my snow boots with pruners in hand to manicure my young Honey Locust. Locusts generally don't need much pruning, but I wanted to remove some branches that were too low. (I apologize for the overexposed photos. My camera batteries were almost dead, so I snapped three quick pictures on the automatic setting without checking them until I had new batteries, and this is what I got.) In the overexposed pictures, you can sort of make out two branches on the left that were growing three or four
feet above the ground. I want to be able to walk under this tree, so those branches had to go. Tree trunks grow at the top, not from the bottom. Branches will not end up higher than they originally grow. I've also read that one should not remove more than one-third of a plant's branches when pruning. I took off a little less than that. You can see the finished result and fallen branches in the last picture. I had taken off some branches last winter and left those two to leave strength in the tree. Last summer, the locust added at least three feet to its height, so this winter I took off all
the branches that were too low and everything that crosses weird in the interior of the vase shape I am going for. I planted this tree in October 2005. January 2008 was the first time I pruned it, taking off a branch that accounted for one-third of the tree. I was pleased with the top growth last year and I hope this month's pruning will encourage it to put more energy into height this year.