Pruning can be thought of as being synonymous to cutting your hair or trimming your nails at regular interval. That is probably the simplest way to look at it and to understand why pruning is so vital. Just like how long nails can play host to a large number of bacteria and dirt increasing the risk of getting sick, damaged or dead/infected tree branches can affect the growth and the overall health of the tree as well. Damaged or infected tree branches act as a means for all that harmful foreign substance/particles to spread throughout the other branches and prevent or at least slow down the growing mechanism of the tree. Hence, pruning is the most effective and the best way to prevent all that from happening.
Here are some additional benefits of pruning –
• Safety
Yes, pruning is about keeping your tree safe and free from any harmful factors that may affect the health and growth of your tree, but pruning also plays an important role in keeping you safe. How? Well, dead branches aren’t exactly known for their strength, and in most cases, if you don’t prune them at the proper time, they may (and they will) fall and hit the person below it. Also apart from endangering the life of a person, dead branches can also fall on buildings or even electrical transmission lines. Hence removing the dead branches aka pruning is vital.
• Tree growth
The main advantage of pruning is that it allows you to control the way your tree grows (at least up to a good extent). Proper pruning of certain branches can help the tree to grow in a more "organized" manner so that it does not just grow up in a random direction. For this, however, you need to identify the "main trunk" of the tree and avoid cutting that part. If you simply follow the line of the main trunk and keep the other branches properly pruned, the tree regains the most dominant and stable structure possible.
• Improve tree quality
Pruning plays a significant role in increasing or enhancing the quality of the tree as well. If you are pruning a fruit tree, proper pruning can significantly improve the quality of the fruit produced from the tree. Similarly, a flowering tree can produce better and healthier flower blooms if you prune it properly and prune it at the right time.
For you to reap all the above benefits of pruning, the essential requirement would be to possess a proper pruning technique or tips to make the most out of it. Thus, here are some simple tips to aid you in pruning the right way
Always cut the branches that appear weak or damaged/infected first. They can spread the infection, and thus it is more logical to eliminate them as soon as possible
Remove the water sprouts (suckers) from the tree as early as possible. If you see the slightest signs of formation of water sprouts, you should just prune it without a second thought. They do not play any relevant role in tree growth, and in fact, they are one of the major contributors in deteriorating the growth.
You also need to remove excess branches (even if they are not infected) in some cases to create more spaces for sunlight to penetrate. Also, these branches can overlap with other adjacent branches and preventing their growth as well.
While pruning the branches, make sure never to leave a stub. Leaving a large stub is often one of the most common mistake that almost everyone makes and do not take its negative effects seriously. But, leaving a stub after pruning undermines everything that you do and makes all that insignificant as it only encourages insects to crawl in and infect the other parts of the tree
When is the best suited time for pruning?
Pruning has its own time duration within which it produces the best results. Most people dealing with fruit trees say that December is the ideal time for pruning fruit trees (Apple in particular). But, there are again other fruit trees that react differently when they are pruned in the early winter months. Nectarine and Peach trees, in particular, are best suited to prune in late winter (unlike Apple) or even in the early months of the spring season as well.
As for flowering plants/trees, the ideal time duration also varies with the type of flowers. But, in general, flowering plants are pruned only after late winter in order to encourage healthier growth. Flowering plants can be briefly categorized into two main types: spring and summer flowering shrub.
Spring flowering shrubs include flowers such as Witch-alder, forsythia, Bridal-wreath, Azalea, etc. They usually grow on woods that they develop from the previous season, and, hence, they are best pruned after they have stopped blossoming.
Summer flowering shrubs such as Mock oranges, Meadowsweets, Cinquefoils, common Hibiscus, etc. tend to grow on wood that develops from that particular season. They are therefore best suited to prune before their blooming season begins.
Usually, when it comes to determining the ideal time of a particular tree pruning time, it becomes a hard task to determine the ideal time for every single type of trees/plants. Thus taking the professional help from tree services such as Sydney Tree Services can help you in easing that process greatly as well.