Sunday, March 28, 2010

Cherry tree surgery

Mum was here for spring training and now the garden looks aMAZing, of course, but she also pointed out some things for me to keep my eye on. One of them was the cherry tree in the front yard, which was never pruned properly as a baby. It was strangling itself, and Mum pointed out exactly which branch needed to go first. Yesterday I got at it.
Before:
See the thin branch headed up and to the left? It was causing a big bruise on the main trunk. There were sewbugs (?so-bugs? carpenters) living in it - yuck!
After:

Before:
This is a view from the back side - you can see that two arms from the renegade branch are wrapping themselves around the main trunk like pincers. Here is the same view, from further out; it just looks messy.
After: better!
Here is one of the "bruises" from the back side - nasty! I hope it will heal up now that it can breathe.
Another worry: is the cut close enough to heal over properly? Or do I need to take it in a little closer?
I found another offending branch a little higher up as well. Got right into this, I did! Notice tidy cut around centre of photo, and another liberated bruise over to the left.
Poor old tree, it still has some problems, but hopefully this will make it a little happier.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE cherry trees!
xo C

Wren nests in... said...

Don't know much about trees, but I think that cut is fine as it is. It is my understanding that leaving a bit of a collar is actually better than cutting too close.

Lovely tree! (Gorgeous chats. ;o))

lisarose said...

Cape May Wren, thank you for commenting! And I hope the handsome Russell is feeling better.

My mum concurs that the cut looks good. Here's a quote from her email: "Your cuts on the cherry look exactly right - right on the "shoulder". Impressive documentation!"

lisarose said...

How can one teach one's parents to actually use the "comments" option?

This just in from my dad: "Tree pruning is lots of fun -- I did a lot last year and now as another early spring is upon us I'm eying the branches I missed last year."