(no subject)
Pruning is an important part of plant maintenance. You'd think that a plant, being an organism that theoretically is capable of living in the wild, would be capable of growing in such a way as to not sabotage itself. You'd think this, but you'd be wrong, and any walk through a healthy forest will tell you why.
The ground under wild-growing trees is littered with fallen branches. Trees have evolved to compensate for the loss of branches and foliage; they haven't managed to evolve to avoid said loss altogether.
The picture guide under the cut specifically shows me pruning my citrus trees, but even many smaller houseplants need periodic pruning. Any vine plant will need to be snipped when it gets too long, in order to stay healthy, and some other kinds of houseplants need pruning, too. Although all these pictures are of woody trees, the principles apply to many kinds of plants.
First, you will need pruning shears.
I mainly use the ones on the left, with the red handle, because the way they're designed makes it easy to get a flush cut on a branch. The ones in the middle are good for softer plants, while the ones on the right are heavy-duty anvil-style shears for really large branches.
I prune my trees once a year, in the spring before the new flush of spring growth really starts. Indoor plants can be trimmed at any time, and if a tree is insisting on growing in an unwanted direction, it's never a bad time to pinch off undesired growth. But, for a large-scale, all-over pruning, early spring is best.
Over the course of the summer, I'll keep an eye on them to pinch off growth that is going the wrong way, but in the winter I generally let them do whatever they want. Winter is a hard time of year for them anyway, without me getting in there with scissors.
I started with the tangelo, because it needed the most work.
You can see that it just went nuts over the winter. There are branches and leaves everywhere, and while this makes it look lush and healthy, it's actually not healthy at all. Air can't circulate in those inner leaves, and they aren't getting much sun either. You can also see some dead branches sticking out.
Those dead branches are the first order of business. Step one is to get rid of all dead growth.
Here's one of those dead branches. It's died just above the live branch that's coming out the side.
This is a better look at that junction between live wood and dead wood.
And this is how I'm going to slice the dead part off.
You always want to cut on an angle. In this case, the direction of the angle is pretty obvious, because the dead portion of the branch is directing it, but I'll show you later how to choose the direction of the cut when you're pruning a branch that's entirely alive.
Cutting across this way is tempting, but is the wrong way to do it. Cutting straight across the dead branch would form a stub. Stubs are unsightly, and they also constitute a place where insects and disease can enter the tree. The portion of the stub above the live branch will still be dead, and because it's dead it won't form bark over the stub. If you make a stub with a living branch, the part above the new growing tip will die and again you'll have a stub with no bark on it.
Cutting on an angle causes the tree to heal over the cut and forms a stronger branch.
Whenever you are removing a branch entirely, you want to cut it as close to flush with the parent branch (or trunk) as possible.
Here it is after I snipped. Note how you could fool yourself, if the edges were rounded and everything was the same color, into thinking that this was one branch that is simply twisty. That is your objective whenever you make a cut. "A single twisty branch" is what this point will look like next year.
Removing the dead crap is the easy part. Now we have to start removing live stuff.
You have to be ruthless. Look at the mess going on to the right of this picture. This is the plant equivalent of when you have long hair and it gets all tangled up into a mat. The only way to cure this is to remove some of those branches.
But which ones?
Well, we need to understand a little about what makes for a strong tree. A good, strong tree will have branches that radiate outward, with plenty of room between them so that they don't rub one another. Branches that grow inward or which cross over one another are undesirable.
Also, anywhere that a branch splits is a weak point. The more branches that emerge from the split, the weaker the split becomes. This is why Bradford pear trees are so fragile and break off in the wind so readily - they have ten thousand branches all emerging from the same spot on the trunk. The first high wind to come along slices them down the middle, right through that weak place where all the branches emerge.
Knowing this, we will start with branches that cross over each other.
Here's one. I decided to preserve the larger, woody branch behind the smaller one that crosses it, because the larger branch was growing up, whereas the small one was growing inward. Inward-growing branches are undesirable.
I snipped it on the line. The smaller branch below the undesirable one can now take over.
None of the pictures that I took of this unholy configuration really do it justice. These two come close.
This branch was literally lying atop like 3 other branches. I cut it off flush with its parent branch, and now it's like that thing never freaking existed. If I'd noticed what it was doing when it was just a tiny nubbin, I would have pinched it off from the start.
Problems like that are easy to resolve. Branches which cross over one another so that they would rub against each other in the wind ... they cannot be allowed to remain, so off they come, usually flush with the parent branch.
But then you have situations like this.
These three branches were growing way too close to one another. They weren't rubbing now, but given time and growth that would have started to become a problem.
It was really the branch on the right that was the problem child. Note that dogleg to the left about six inches down the branch. The one on the far left was drooping more than the middle branch, and so I judged that they could safely coexist, but that dogleg in the right-hand branch made it nudge too close to the middle branch for comfort.
The solution was to try to encourage it to dogleg in the other direction, away from the middle branch.
This is the critical point.
I'm going to cut along the black line. That little green nubbin you see under the place where it will be cut is a point where new growth can occur. By cutting the rest of the branch off, that little bud will be stimulated to grow, and it will do so along the red arrow, taking the new growth away from the other two branches and creating a new dogleg in the appropriate direction.
This is an important piece of plant biology trivia:
Under every leaf and at many places along what appears to be solid bark, there exist clusters of cells which are capable of growing into a new branch. These are sometimes visible as buds, but sometimes they are not visible until they start sprouting.
The plant obviously doesn't want every single one of these clusters to start growing, but having them is important so that the plant has options later on if it loses pieces. And so any point on the plant which is actively growing secretes a hormone which suppresses growth downstream. This allows the growing tip to spread out, while preventing more branches from cropping up farther down and taking the tree's energy away from the actively growing tip.
That little green bud is one such potential branch. By removing the rest of the branch above the bud, the suppressing hormone is eliminated, and the bud can begin to grow.
By paying close attention to the direction of the bud, and cutting on a slant directly above the one you want to use, you can make a branch grow in whatever direction you like.
Here's another example, on a different tree (the Eureka lemon if you want to know):
Here we have a branch that's crossing another. It's not as readily apparent what's wrong with this crossover here, because the main problem was out of frame in the upper-righthand corner of this photo. The upshot, however, was that if I could make the branch grow downward, then the problem would disappear.
Here's the bud I want to grow. It's pointed downward - away from the problematic crossover up above.
Here it is after the cut. The bud, now free of the growth-suppression hormone, will now start to grow in the direction of the red arrow.
This is what the tangelo looked like after I was finished with it. Less foliage, but it's ready for the spring growth spurt.
Generally, you want to preserve the larger, stronger branches, but not always. A branch which is strong and vigorous but growing in the completely wrong direction will have to go, sometimes in favor of a much smaller, weaker branch. You have to be ruthless!
Here's an example of numerous branches all sprouting out of the same spot. If you can count them, there are FOUR branches here. Two is the maximum number of branches that we want to emerge from the same locale.
So we need to remove two of them. The one on the far left needs to go, because it's crossing over another branch. The one that was aiming downward was simply in an awkward position.
Here it is after I removed the two extraneous branches.
You may want to do some additional pruning after you've taken care of all the problems. For instance, if you want a tree to stop growing upward and start growing outward instead, you may want to snip off any branches that are growing higher than your intended max height. Always make sure that you cut directly above a bud, and that the bud is facing outward - the bud directly under your cut will be the one to start growing, so you want it to grow the right direction.
My Eureka lemon, on the other hand, had a slight problem with having these long lanky branches thrown everywhere, and I actually want that tree to grow up somewhat. So I snipped off some of the longer side-thrown branches, to encourage upward growth.
Well, that's about it.
The ground under wild-growing trees is littered with fallen branches. Trees have evolved to compensate for the loss of branches and foliage; they haven't managed to evolve to avoid said loss altogether.
The picture guide under the cut specifically shows me pruning my citrus trees, but even many smaller houseplants need periodic pruning. Any vine plant will need to be snipped when it gets too long, in order to stay healthy, and some other kinds of houseplants need pruning, too. Although all these pictures are of woody trees, the principles apply to many kinds of plants.
First, you will need pruning shears.
I mainly use the ones on the left, with the red handle, because the way they're designed makes it easy to get a flush cut on a branch. The ones in the middle are good for softer plants, while the ones on the right are heavy-duty anvil-style shears for really large branches.
I prune my trees once a year, in the spring before the new flush of spring growth really starts. Indoor plants can be trimmed at any time, and if a tree is insisting on growing in an unwanted direction, it's never a bad time to pinch off undesired growth. But, for a large-scale, all-over pruning, early spring is best.
Over the course of the summer, I'll keep an eye on them to pinch off growth that is going the wrong way, but in the winter I generally let them do whatever they want. Winter is a hard time of year for them anyway, without me getting in there with scissors.
I started with the tangelo, because it needed the most work.
You can see that it just went nuts over the winter. There are branches and leaves everywhere, and while this makes it look lush and healthy, it's actually not healthy at all. Air can't circulate in those inner leaves, and they aren't getting much sun either. You can also see some dead branches sticking out.
Those dead branches are the first order of business. Step one is to get rid of all dead growth.
Here's one of those dead branches. It's died just above the live branch that's coming out the side.
This is a better look at that junction between live wood and dead wood.
And this is how I'm going to slice the dead part off.
You always want to cut on an angle. In this case, the direction of the angle is pretty obvious, because the dead portion of the branch is directing it, but I'll show you later how to choose the direction of the cut when you're pruning a branch that's entirely alive.
Cutting across this way is tempting, but is the wrong way to do it. Cutting straight across the dead branch would form a stub. Stubs are unsightly, and they also constitute a place where insects and disease can enter the tree. The portion of the stub above the live branch will still be dead, and because it's dead it won't form bark over the stub. If you make a stub with a living branch, the part above the new growing tip will die and again you'll have a stub with no bark on it.
Cutting on an angle causes the tree to heal over the cut and forms a stronger branch.
Whenever you are removing a branch entirely, you want to cut it as close to flush with the parent branch (or trunk) as possible.
Here it is after I snipped. Note how you could fool yourself, if the edges were rounded and everything was the same color, into thinking that this was one branch that is simply twisty. That is your objective whenever you make a cut. "A single twisty branch" is what this point will look like next year.
Removing the dead crap is the easy part. Now we have to start removing live stuff.
You have to be ruthless. Look at the mess going on to the right of this picture. This is the plant equivalent of when you have long hair and it gets all tangled up into a mat. The only way to cure this is to remove some of those branches.
But which ones?
Well, we need to understand a little about what makes for a strong tree. A good, strong tree will have branches that radiate outward, with plenty of room between them so that they don't rub one another. Branches that grow inward or which cross over one another are undesirable.
Also, anywhere that a branch splits is a weak point. The more branches that emerge from the split, the weaker the split becomes. This is why Bradford pear trees are so fragile and break off in the wind so readily - they have ten thousand branches all emerging from the same spot on the trunk. The first high wind to come along slices them down the middle, right through that weak place where all the branches emerge.
Knowing this, we will start with branches that cross over each other.
Here's one. I decided to preserve the larger, woody branch behind the smaller one that crosses it, because the larger branch was growing up, whereas the small one was growing inward. Inward-growing branches are undesirable.
I snipped it on the line. The smaller branch below the undesirable one can now take over.
None of the pictures that I took of this unholy configuration really do it justice. These two come close.
This branch was literally lying atop like 3 other branches. I cut it off flush with its parent branch, and now it's like that thing never freaking existed. If I'd noticed what it was doing when it was just a tiny nubbin, I would have pinched it off from the start.
Problems like that are easy to resolve. Branches which cross over one another so that they would rub against each other in the wind ... they cannot be allowed to remain, so off they come, usually flush with the parent branch.
But then you have situations like this.
These three branches were growing way too close to one another. They weren't rubbing now, but given time and growth that would have started to become a problem.
It was really the branch on the right that was the problem child. Note that dogleg to the left about six inches down the branch. The one on the far left was drooping more than the middle branch, and so I judged that they could safely coexist, but that dogleg in the right-hand branch made it nudge too close to the middle branch for comfort.
The solution was to try to encourage it to dogleg in the other direction, away from the middle branch.
This is the critical point.
I'm going to cut along the black line. That little green nubbin you see under the place where it will be cut is a point where new growth can occur. By cutting the rest of the branch off, that little bud will be stimulated to grow, and it will do so along the red arrow, taking the new growth away from the other two branches and creating a new dogleg in the appropriate direction.
This is an important piece of plant biology trivia:
Under every leaf and at many places along what appears to be solid bark, there exist clusters of cells which are capable of growing into a new branch. These are sometimes visible as buds, but sometimes they are not visible until they start sprouting.
The plant obviously doesn't want every single one of these clusters to start growing, but having them is important so that the plant has options later on if it loses pieces. And so any point on the plant which is actively growing secretes a hormone which suppresses growth downstream. This allows the growing tip to spread out, while preventing more branches from cropping up farther down and taking the tree's energy away from the actively growing tip.
That little green bud is one such potential branch. By removing the rest of the branch above the bud, the suppressing hormone is eliminated, and the bud can begin to grow.
By paying close attention to the direction of the bud, and cutting on a slant directly above the one you want to use, you can make a branch grow in whatever direction you like.
Here's another example, on a different tree (the Eureka lemon if you want to know):
Here we have a branch that's crossing another. It's not as readily apparent what's wrong with this crossover here, because the main problem was out of frame in the upper-righthand corner of this photo. The upshot, however, was that if I could make the branch grow downward, then the problem would disappear.
Here's the bud I want to grow. It's pointed downward - away from the problematic crossover up above.
Here it is after the cut. The bud, now free of the growth-suppression hormone, will now start to grow in the direction of the red arrow.
This is what the tangelo looked like after I was finished with it. Less foliage, but it's ready for the spring growth spurt.
Generally, you want to preserve the larger, stronger branches, but not always. A branch which is strong and vigorous but growing in the completely wrong direction will have to go, sometimes in favor of a much smaller, weaker branch. You have to be ruthless!
Here's an example of numerous branches all sprouting out of the same spot. If you can count them, there are FOUR branches here. Two is the maximum number of branches that we want to emerge from the same locale.
So we need to remove two of them. The one on the far left needs to go, because it's crossing over another branch. The one that was aiming downward was simply in an awkward position.
Here it is after I removed the two extraneous branches.
You may want to do some additional pruning after you've taken care of all the problems. For instance, if you want a tree to stop growing upward and start growing outward instead, you may want to snip off any branches that are growing higher than your intended max height. Always make sure that you cut directly above a bud, and that the bud is facing outward - the bud directly under your cut will be the one to start growing, so you want it to grow the right direction.
My Eureka lemon, on the other hand, had a slight problem with having these long lanky branches thrown everywhere, and I actually want that tree to grow up somewhat. So I snipped off some of the longer side-thrown branches, to encourage upward growth.
Well, that's about it.