Tree Pruning as an Art

I spent nearly $800 last month to prune my two Fruitless Mulberries. I'm actually rehabing them after many years of poor pruning, typical of Fruitless Mulberries in this area. They're often pruned into a single trunk with no shaping main branches, or a trunk with multiple main branches withOUT any other outlying branches. They're most often pruned prior to changing from green to yellow in color. They're pruned in these ways because their owners or caregivers are just lazy and it's horrible to see them. I have two of these and when I finally gained total control over their care I refused to allow them to be so abused and have been working on rehabing them back to their lovely potential. And it has been expensive and it has been iffy to find someone capable of or reasonably-enuf priced to do the work. I finally just bit the bullet and have been working with someone who seemed capable. But this year he left, it seemed at the time, much work to be accomplished and I was so discouraged.

Yesterday there was a guy in my neighbor's yard pruning our shared twistie branch willow (I water it to the detriment of my gardener's lawnmower blades, she pays the price in size and fence damage). We both get to enjoy its visibility over the tops of our homes as we return home from our crazy worlds outside of home. He crawled around my roof several times (the tree was tickling my electrical power line--eeek). I watched him climb up and then down, up and then down, up and then down to look up, study, contemplate the shape and density of that lovely tree. He worked on that tree for more than 4 hours and the end result was magic. Absolutely magic!

And, I got to rescue some twisted limbs for my inside pot. He's coming over over the next several weeks to complete the work on my mulberries and ALSO (hallelujah!) to stump grind some of the rising roots on them.

Let me show you.


Linda

Here's the tree from my rear yard, aka Olivia's Rose Garden.

From my driveway as I return home at the end of my workday.

Further out as I approach my outer gate. Keep in mind that he had to remove that one branch which was rubbing along my electrical power line. It is obvious to me from below the tree at the trunk, that there will be growth from another main branch which will grow to fill in that now-blank space without tweaking my line.

edited to add: Not a particularly good pic, but the willow is beyond the Mulberry you see in the foreground. This is the better-looking of the two mulberries he's going to work on.

This message was edited Mar 22, 2009 9:15 AM

From the front yard perpendicular to our shared property line fence, directly over the puppies' kennel.

Like I said, magic.

I'll pay an artist like this to work in my yard ANY TIME! Won't you?

Brrr, it's cold and getting wet outside.

Linda

While I was reading your thread, DH was reading an article on a new gizmo that can keep tree roots from coming up on sidewalk trees. We hate it when beautiful old trees get whacked down because of a lack of care in choice, planting, etc. I'm glad you've found someone who can help you and your neighbor with your trees.

oh, I love those willows (had one at Oregon house) ... we're going to put a pool in here eventually so I can't put one in, but I just adore those twisty branches, and the color, too.

Beautiful job.

Or, as they seem to do in most places with fruitless mulberry....pollarding, which IMHO ruins the tree. There's one in my father's yard in Ceres that he's done this to for the past 50 years...poor tree. This usually is a sore subject amongst those with mulberry trees, so I will say that we all have differing ideas when it comes to aesthetics...I myself don't care for pollarding.

Linda, it's so nice to see actual "pruning" done on a tree instead of hacking and topping. Just a beautiful job on a beautiful tree. Thanks for sharing!

.. there is a street near here Jefferson, where EVERYONE does this to their mulberry trees - each yard has one or two in their front. They must have been planted in the 50's when the houses were built. I had never seen anything like it before I came to CA. They look amputated to me.

In some areas they're treated like that to keep them out of the electric lines--my street has a lot of mulberries that were planted as street trees and you can tell that they all have been butchered like that in the past. I sort of suspect when the neighborhood was first built the electrical lines were above ground and that's why the trees were chopped on a regular basis, but then when they put the lines underground they didn't have to chop them anymore.

Yes, WCGypsy, pollarding often leads to disagreement amongst gardeners. It's done a lot hereabouts with the mulberries. They use the technique at my county office and I really dislike the look, no matter what season I'm looking at the poor tree. It just seems to unnatural. I've just always thought that people who do it are lazy (sorry), but it appears that lazy is not always the case. Some actually like the look! I've never wondered about the origins of such a pruning method, but your thoughts made me Google it. There's a very interesting article here http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/22/style/cuttings-art-in-progress-the-quirky-appeal-of-pollarding.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Very interesting. Check it out.

Ah, yes, RedToots, they certainly shed light, wind-loving leaves at the end of the season. I don't think you want one within a block of a pool, for sure! hehehe

Still in the low 50's here, sprinkling off and on. Black clouds moving into my view on the west side of the house; clear blue skies on the east side as I look out the windows. Hail the size of large pinheads earlier. What a day!! Welcome to California!

Warmly,
Linda

They do it to the mulberry's in Sun City too. I just hate it. It's so unnatural. I'm glad you found an artist to help make your trees look beautiful and happy.
WIB,
SW

Fruitless Mulberry Trees appear to have either admirers or people who outright despise them. I'm somewhere in the middle.

They do supply great shade, no question about that. Unfortunately, many people don't realize what invasive roots they have, and hence they plant them in the wrong places and then the trouble starts.

Having one turns it into an issue of a double edged sword, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, they get HUGE. Yes, they have agressive invasive roots. Yes, they do need pruning, but this seems to be where the other issue starts:

I see them pollarded all the time, but they do grow extremely fast and recover, albeit not into the form they are "supposed to be". If you don't do appropriate trimming, they get top heavy and break apart.

Cutting off large limbs can also make them get infected and diseased.
They send up water sprouts like crazy. They are very difficult to garden under and around due to their roots. If you have poor soil. they surface root terribly.

I have one smack in the center of my garden. When I moved here, it had never been pruned at all. It created such dense shade there was no grass anywhere. (Not that I'm that fond of grass... just trying to illustrate that it let no sunlight through at all.)

I didn't want to remove mine completely, so little by little I started lacing it out. What I've ended up with is basically a bonsai'ed tree. It pretty much looks weird, but I keep the vertical growth removed...which is a constant project. The horizontal growth forms the framework for it, but in actuality, the foliage is too large in scale...but it works. I have it trimmed up about 10 feet off the ground, so all you basically notice is the framework of it. This approach was definitely a "compromise" and works as long as I constantly thin it out. I don't have the surface root issue as my soil is sandy clay, thankfully.

The orange tell-tale roots of the thing are everywhere I dig, but I've been hacking them for years and it doesn't seem to bother it at all.

These are definitely trees that need major consideration before they are planted on average sized city lots.

I'll take a photo later and post it. It's just now leafing out and those catkins are all over everything...but I still like it...most of the time!

Nice job Linda. Your tree is really looking good. It is hard to find a good tree man but I've finally found one. Not cheap but excellent. He's a competitive tree climber too. :-)

Personally, I think that the fruiting mulberry's I have need to be planted between my neighbors place and mine, as a barrier.
I like them a lot. Just hate to see them butchered.
WIB,
SW

Weeeeheeeeeee! He was here today, but I didn't think to take a pic. Geeeez! They are beautiful, all cleaned out inside and airy. And I can even see the trunk and main branches through the smaller branches, so it looks like a tree instead of a lollipop.

I'll get a photo tomorrow to show you. He is awesome. What an artist!

Linda

Twincol, first thanks for sharing the lovely pictures, the tree is stunning. I grew up on an acre in Clovis we had 3 Fruitless Mulberry trees...we never did that giant Q-tip thing to them and they thanked us with wonderful 50 ft shade canopies all hellishly hot summer. Yes they made extremely heavy shade and Mom had dozens of lovely shade loving hanging pots full of color dangling from their powerful branches. It was like living in a park, sadly that wonderland of my youth is now the parking lot of Lowe's...I can't even go there...as for those roots, OMG there were two with girth greater than most upright trees, but they weren't close to any structure so there was no reason to "deal" with them...they are, in the proper location, trees that would have inspired a Norman Rockwell.

OK, here 'tis. Compare this to 3/22 9:01 a.m. and see if you can see the change. My mind has a difficult time wrapping itself around the difference in the photos, but there IS a difference. And the following picture shows the two trees side-by-side.

If you can even imagine this, when I first moved in here in 1976 there was actually a similarly-aged Modesto Ash wedged there in between the two Mulberries! I was taking a break nearby the second year and heard this odd sound, tweeeak thweeajk, tweeeak thweeajk and looked up to find that the main trunk was split down the middle. Since it WAS a tree The City would have planted they were out the next day to take that dude out and grind the stump down to nothingness -- obviously not wanting it to return in any form {chuckling}. Obviously a threat to our property!

Linda

Here's the mighty duo!

This guy will be out later this week to stump grind out some of the larger roots intruding into my landscape design area inside the fence.

What an awesome fellow!

Linda

[edited to add] BTW, the branches hanging down over the fence are left deliberately there so as to provide a privacy screen of sorts, keeping curious eyes out of my living room as someone walks by along the fence line.

This message was edited Mar 29, 2009 12:57 PM

They look WONDERFUL!

The trees look wonderful. Who knew that they could get that big, right?

they do look fantastic !