Tuesday, April 6, 2010

How not to prune trees...

WOW....I didn't realize over a month has passed since I last made a blog posting. I'm really sorry about that...spring has sprung and I have been busy showing the Boy Wonder. So, the blog has been neglected. :( But now we have flowers popping up and large amounts of growth (thanks to the monumental rains), I'll have plenty of things to write about and take photos of. Speaking of those rains...Garden Consultant HQ got flooded out and now my office is in my kitchen which is a bummer. FEMA just left here this morning and hopefully, they will deem us worthy of assistance and we can put the office back together quickly.
Anyway, on to today's post and lesson of how not to prune trees. Just when I think I've seen it all when it comes to bad pruning...I see something that surpasses it. I'll go from bad to worse in this post on things I see around town...most of these photos are the work of professionals **shakes head** and one is a residential property in my neighborhood.

Here's a nice naturally shaped flowering pear in Middletown, RI.

Here's another flowering pear in Middletown that someone decided to prune and I honestly can't figure out why they would. There are no wires nearby, there are no limbs that could damage cars, and the canopy is high enough people can walk underneath them. This tree looked like it is trimmed regularly into this shape....WHY??? I'll give this person an C - for effort because they did attempt to make it a pyramid so they could maximize leaf surface area for the sun.


Now, both of these next photos I shall also give a wag of my finger (a la Stephen Colbert) for both horrific pruning practices and equally horrific design practices. Below is a Cryptomeria...beautiful tree when allowed to grow to it's natural size of 50 -60' tall and 25 - 30' wide. If you would like to see what one should look like check out this link - http://www.cnr.vt.edu/Dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=458 Why someone decided to plant one here baffles me....it's going to be WAY too large for this spot!!! So to take care of this "problem" the landscaper decides they must top it. Nice.....

This photo was taken at the same gas station. This poor suffering soul is a Cypress. Really?? You really had to plant a tree that is going to be 10+' right next to the stop sign? What's wrong with you?? What was the landscaper thinking when they cut it like this?? They should just put the poor plant out of it's misery and just remove it. Sheesh.

Oh...and this place. I totally could tear into the topiaries but am choosing not to. You can see the lovely Japanese Maple to the left of the front door. It's never been touched from what I can see. Look right in front of that pole one in from the right....see the stumps? That was another Japanese Maple the same size as it's mate....they decided for some insane reason to reduce it to 5' stumps. I thought they were going to remove it...oh no, I think that was their way of "pruning" it. Then there are the three little mushroom trees near the street and the driveway. Two of them are Japanese Maples...not the type that are the cut leaf weeping forms...but the same type as the big one. Hmmmmmm. Then the mushroom closest to the garage is a dogwood...tree. Good lord...I can't wrap my head around this at all. My brain hurts just trying to think of a remote reason for why this would be good horticultural practices.

So kids, that is today's lesson of how not to prune trees.

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