Pin Oak and Maple tree questions

slosrtnick

Hi,

I live in Missouri and have a full size pin oak and full size maple tree in my yard. Both are healthy trees.

I have a neighbor who hired a tree company to trim some branches of both trees off his house. Well I came outside this morning to see they basically took all of my horizontal branches on one side of my pin oak and cut them to stubs from the bottom to almost all the way up to the top. They also cut a decent portion off of my maple tree as well.

Now my question is, what should I do to help my trees get through this stress and grow back healthy? Should I buy some tree wound paint and seal up the larger branches? I have also heard of mychorhizal fungi, should I put down some of this?

If I'm not making any sense, please let me know.
Any advise would be appreciated
Thanks
Nick

Darrell Mcleod

Nick,

Painting wounds is not considered to be good practice, have the cuts been made properly?

Do a search on Google for “tree pruning cuts”

Feeding – I would have a soil test done – agricultural, horticultural soil laboratories do them – you can establish exactly what nutrients you require and feed away

Eric Frei

If there are stubs left then you can still prune back to target.

Pictures would be good.

I trialled some concoctions of antagonistic fungi because a BCC ecologist said wounds had to be painted on the fig tree we were pruning. Rather than argue and educate yet another ignorant ecologist in a bureaucratic environment about trees I just made up the concoction and the wounds were painted.

The tree was a fig.

The tree had many previous pruning wounds we could compare too.

After 1 year I inspected many of the "painted" cuts and frankly, there was no difference to the other cuts made prior or to cuts we do not paint on the same species on other jobs. I concluded it was a waste of time and effort (as expected) but because some boffin wanted to enforce it, it was easier to just do it and charge more.... so over arguing with councils.

There has been tests done which show some initial benefit, but as with all things outdoors and in the weather it has to be re-applied regularly. If it rains a lot, is in hot sun getting roasted etc all makes a difference. A one off application simply doesn't work long term.

Over there you also have stuff like oak wilt, DED etc so pruning on some species at certain times of year is not recommended.

try to keep the size of the cuts small, that is best, so cutting off some 2' diameter limb at the trunk is not wise.

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slosrtnick

Sorry, I just thought the pm was more of a standard "if you're new to forums, here's how you do stuff" pm. I'm glad the server is big enough to support everybody's pics.

Try #2

Here are some pics from my phone (not the best quality). Let me know if you need any close ups or anything. It looks like they did cut them properly. What do you mean by "prune back to target"?

My house is on the right of these pics.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it!
Nick

Attached Thumbnails

           

   

Eric Frei

There's a right place to cut. You cut a branch back to another branch at the correct angle, known as a target cut.

Pruning cuts - collar, collarless and co-dominant

Australian Standards of Pruning AS4373 2006 draft

I would suggest you get an qualified arborist in to complete the cuts, best way would be a bucket truck on the neighbours side. Where a branch has been stub cut and there is no other living branch to reduce to then go back to the trunk with a correct cut.

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Paul Toivonen

If you are to paint the wounds with anything ,it would need to be done before the tree has "sealed" it.
On most species that would be within 10mins so, why bother?

slosrtnick

So, I had a qualified arborist come by yesterday and give me a quote for fixing everything and it would be around $375 for target pruning and $175 for deep root fertilizing. He said both trees were also "spike booted", which is really bad, but I didn't notice it until he said something about it. He also said a lot of branches were going to need to be cut back all the way to the trunk.

If I was to try cutting some of the lower branches myself, do I just cut it flush with the bark of the tree? Also, should I be pretty worried about those deep gouges in the trunk? The arborist said there was nothing he could do about it, but he's glad it was at least done in the fall, and not in spring. That why he recommended the deep root fertilizing, so the tree could battle the problems itself.

Thanks for all of the help
Nick

Eric Frei

My comments are in red, and some you will not like!

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slosrtnick

So, I have a little bit of an update.

A couple of weeks after the sheisty pruning job of my trees, I noticed my basement drain backing up sewage into my basement. Well, it turns out, one of my trees decided to grow their roots to infiltrate my ceramic pipe going to the main line. I guess this is the trees going into shock growth. I was a little scared to do the target pruning after that because I didn't want to send the trees into even more of a shock, so I left them alone. Now I'm about to get my tax refund check, so I am thinking of getting them target pruned in a couple of weeks. When is the cutoff time to get work done on the trees without hurting their cycle? (Midwest USA)

Just trying to keep this thread updated every now and again for people in a similar situation.

Nick

Brent Ferris

I agree with Eric's comments.

The roots were already likely growing in your drain, it is just a coincidence both came to your attention at the same time. Roots take a while to grow (years) and penetrate a drain pipe. Generally the pruning you are considering should be done before the spring flush.

i am surprised the tree company was allowed to trim the trees in that way. BOth parties should have talked over the situation, and the neighbour should have agreed to pay part of the cost, with you hiring the service. You then have more control.

And to reiterate, NO FLUSH CUTS -- they create far more shock and decay for the tree,.

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Steve Galehouse

Nick-

The tree trimming company should not have accessed the trees from your property without your permission---if they climbed and spiked them without your permission then you likely have legal recourse. If you live in an area where oak wilt is a problem, spiking while climbing the tree can infect the tree.

Property rights here in Ohio, and likely in Missouri also, state that property boundaries extend upward vertically, so any branches of a tree on your land that overhang a neighbor's property can be removed by the neighbor to the plane of the property line, but not further into your land. The photos look like that was the intent, but the removal of the branches over the neighbor's property should have been done with a bucket truck from the neighbor's property if you didn't give permission to climb your tree(for obvious liability issues that would apply to you).

As others have said, I would skip any fertilization or wound painting, but I would consider cosmetic pruning of the pin oak in particular to recover some attractiveness.

If your town has a city arborist I would recommend getting him/her involved.

Steve

swenson.luke

Good grief, that tree service butchered that poor pin oak. With a job like that, i doubt that tree service will be around long. But yeah, just listen to Eric Frei.... whatever you do, do not flush cut! Id say that your tree will be fine. Its just like a bad hair cut, it'll fill out again. Id get it pruned right, so that you have a good starting point for the new growth, and it should fill out nicely.