pruning van

Lean Practitioner Model Five Years In

From our company’s inception, we wanted to keep overhead low. This makes sense for any startup, but we’re planning to maintain our “leanness” into the future. I don’t mean cheapness; we, of course, have operating costs, and we like new and functional equipment. We collected some cool data over the course of 2023 that might […]

Where to Put Decay in Trees?

Any time a living part of a tree is cut open through pruning, or broken open through storm damage, the remaining area will likely decay. This article presents a way to think of pruning as “where to put decay into the tree.” (Photo 1) Most of us working in arboricultural or horticultural fields are aware […]

The Epicormic Conspiracy

Despite the tremendous volume of literature and material available on tree biology and tree biomechanics, one of the most common sentiments heard from tree workers and salespeople goes something like this: “We’ve gotta remove those suckers because they steal energy away from the tree!” This type of statement is expected from homeowners who aren’t well […]

On Removing Deadwood: Part 2

This is the conclusion of a two-part article that takes a close look at the commonly held notion that removing deadwood from trees improves their health. Part 1, “On Removing Deadwood,” ran in the February issue of TCI (tcimag.tcia.org/magazine-archive). In Part 1 of this article, we proposed that removing deadwood from a tree isn’t necessarily […]

On Removing Deadwood, Part 1

Last December, we pruned some hazardous deadwood from a large northern red oak that had been hanging over a client’s garage. She was primarily concerned with not having another hole in the roof of the garage from falling deadwood. The customer had told us a tree service condemned the tree. The salesperson took one glance […]

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