Clearance Pruning Mature Trees

Back in the prehistory of the last millennium, Stacy and I headed down to Florida for our honeymoon.  I snapped a shot of this southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) in St. Augustine.  The ancient tree looks as if it's about scoop up and run off with my new bride.

Low, lateral branches like this are a kid's best friend.  Which is why, a Boise forester explained to me, city trees are limbed up long before they can develop these low branches.  A pity.

A pity too that upon occasion, mature trees need to be trimmed because of clearance issues.  Better to take out just low limbs than an entire tree though, and better to perform the trimming in such a way as to minimize the stress on the tree.


A new driveway is scheduled to be installed right under the large, low limb of this ash.  Rather than make the Airstream slated to be parked there do the limbo, the owners asked me to trim up the tree (arborists call this "raising the canopy").

Removing large limbs on a tree creates open wounds that make the tree more susceptible to disease and pests which can then lead to decay.  It's critical that pruning cuts are performed correctly to expedite the healing process. This healing process is accomplished by a process that the late Dr. Alex Shigo called the "Compartmentalization Of Disease In Trees" (CODIT).  Cells form walls around the wound, effectively quarantining the area to prevent the spread of decay to the rest of the tree.      

So, where and how do you make the cut?  Let's take a look.

Preparing for the first cut.  (Yes.  I will get off the branch first, smarty-pants.)

It's very easy to see the demarcation between the branch and the trunk of the tree in this photo.  That line is called the branch bark ridge, and it's where the bark from the trunk joins the bark of the branch.

Nestled in the branch bark ridge is another area called the branch defense zone.  Cells in this area are responsible for the growth of woundwood that will ultimately grow over the cut.

Woundwood callous is close to sealing off pruning cut

If the branch collar is damaged (often by flush cuts), the woundwood will not grow from the damaged area.  This prolongs the tree's susceptibility to decay.

These branches weigh hundreds of pounds so the standard three cut process ain't gonna work.  I trim the branch in small sections, working my way in from the tip until I have a piece small enough to hold.  An undercut a quarter of the way up, and a final cut from the top (carefully trimming along the branch bark ridge), and viola!  A clean cut.

Remember, not all branch bark ridges are perpendicular to the trunk of the tree.  Take a close look before you cut!

Half a day later...

From start to finish.

Saguaro Canyon, Idaho

Out of all the bizarre, pre-recession themepark residential developments in the Boise area, Saguaro Canyon in Meridian gets my pick for the best.  All those Tuscan villas, the Carolina antebellum neoclassical architecture, and Sun Valley inspired landscapes with aspens full of borers aren't even in the same league.

Sadly, you'll not find a single saguaro at Saguaro Canyon, but you will find a rare collection of specimen sized yuccas and Joshua Trees strangely interspersed with more commonly found Deodar Cedars and Weeping Sequoias. 

An ambitious experiment in landscaping with plants of questionable hardiness, this is what Saguaro Canyon looked like shortly after it was completed.

Ferocactus wislizenii and friends....

At the entrance you're greeted by a who's who list of Sonoran/Chihuahuan superstars.  And, just to make sure you get the subtle vibe of the place, massive slabs of Arizona sandstone were installed as a backdrop.

A sexy night time shot a little further in illuminates Yucca  filamentosa x thompsoniana, Yucca brevifolia,  Cylindropuntia imbricata,  Agave havardiana,  Fouquieria splendens and Opuntia x somethingoranother.


I stopped by a few weeks ago in the bitter cold to see how our southwest friends were holding up.  By this point, I figure that we should be able to get a decent sense of what will survive and what won't.

Let's fast forward five years after the installation was completed ...

On a cold and snowy day...

The sandstone is still there, as are the Deodar cedars, the weeping sequoias and spruce....

A leashed Yucca  filamentosa x thompsoniana trying to make an escape.

The lone Agave survivor.  A. neomexicana?  A. havardiana?  You tell me.  A Yucca baccata sulks in the background.

Yucca  faxoniana on the right.

Cylindropuntia imbricata looking to tangle with anyone dumb enough to amble by.

No sign of the narrow Fouquieria splendens (bummer) or even  the Opuntia polycantha. Unsurprisingly, Ferocactus wislizenii has also left for the great desert in the sky (it was a nice idea, though).  The oft planted Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' looks to have been added later.

Driving a bit further into Saguaro Canyon you start to see specimen sized Yucca faxonia as well as more Yucca  filamentosa x thompsoniana (or is it Yucca rostrata?)

Yucca brevifolia

The most gratifying part of the visit was seeing just how well the Joshua Trees are doing.

Scattered throughout the common area landscape, all the specimens look to be thriving. 

     A veritable yucca copse!

The clubhouse.

All I'm gonna say is that cultured stone looks better in photographs.

Another Yucca faxonia nestled against a south facing wall.  It's where I'd be if I was a yucca forced to live in Idaho.

Yucca baccata hanging with his pal Ephedra equisetina

Cercocarpus trimmed into tidy little snow cones. 

Why stop there?  Surely the Chrysanthemum nauseosus could be trimmed into fish and flying monkeys?







So, we've got a clear idea now of what will survive in southwest Idaho, right?  

Not really.  

Sure, I didn't expect the Ferocactus wislizenii or the Fouquieria splendens to overwinter, but what happened to the hardy Opuntia or the Festuca idahoensis?  I think this hints at some irrigation issues, but it's hard to pin down how soil, drainage and other factors played into the plants' success or mortality rate.

I'm pleased that the Idaho Botanical Garden now has a xeric test garden where these factors can be measured and controlled.  In a couple of weeks I'll be sharing a picture tour of that as well.

1001 Blogs You Must Read Before You Die

'Cause, what the world needs now is another folk singer like I need a hole in my head.
~David Lowery

In the spirit of New Year self-reflection, I pose this question: does the world really need another garden blog?  I've been writing in what could be kindly described as a leisurely manner since 2009, but I've yet to declare my raison d'etre.

I promise to keep this short, but let's backtrack to 1979...


I still remember the day my Dad brought home ELO's Greatest Hits.  The instantly accessible melodies and faux symphonics dovetailed perfectly with the classical music and Beatles I'd been listening to all my young life.  So when I first read that Jeff Lynne had once said that ELO was formed to pick up where I am the Walrus left off, it kind of made sense.  The problem is, he never said it.

But there it was again.  Reading through my new copy Stacy gave me for Christmas of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, I noticed the review of ELO's 1977 Magnum opus, Out Of The Blue made the same reference to I am the Walrus.

There's probably not a great deal of harm done by misquoting some frizzy-haired musician who's managed to hang on to the same set of sunglasses since 1974.  The problem is, I see this kind of thing happening a lot in garden/landscape blogs: the dissemination of information that has a ring of truth to to it, but is patently false.  Blogged.  Reblogged.  Over and over again.

So am I some sort of self-appointed gatekeeper?  John the Baptist in the Wilderness? Nah, I'm just a punk who doesn't have a problem pointing out that the Emperor left his pants at home.

The first time this happened I was still under the naive assumption that everyone is seeking the truth.  I'd been chatting with some Dr. so and so at a local Ag supply outfit about soil conditioners when the conversation turned suddenly to his research into the recent "billbug epidemic in turf grass".  

Innocently enough, I remarked that I had heard of this infestation but had yet to see it in the hundreds of properties that we cared for.  I went on to tell him that, in those instances where customers thought they had billbugs, it turned out to be problems related to sprinkler coverage and exposure - both problems which could be mitigated by relying less on turf in landscape design.  He threw me out of his office.

Sitting in my truck in the parking lot, what should have been clear all along suddenly became obvious: tacking on a "Dr." to the front of your name doesn't make you any more of a truth disseminator than a contractor with stained Carharts.  Dr. so and so's agenda was simply to create a new revenue stream to the business.  New infestation = new product to sell.

I'm still on the look out for billbugs and I will continue to keep an open mind about these kind of things but, ultimately, I'm going to rely on the gardener's best tool: our own power of observation.

So does this world need another gardening blog?  It does if said blog has something interesting to say and speaks truth to power, money, misinformation, greenwashing, trendiness, elitism, pseudoscience and just plain bad taste.

But it's not all about being a contrarian. In future posts I'll flesh out what xericoasis actually means. I'll also continue to share thoughts and pictures from the field, spanning the whole arc of Willowglenn's services, as well as gardening, cooking (and eating!) in our own urban acre.

Here's to a fantastic 2014!

Draw!

Years ago, Stacy and I  frequented an Italian restaurant tucked into the flank of a non-descript strip mall. The food was obvious but delicious, and the music was the kind of non-offensive but cacophonous jazz that I know I'm supposed to like. After years of buttered scallops, gnocchi and Chianti, I started developing a Pavlovian response to the music. To this day, background jazz playing at the vet, the auto repair shop (cool cats, those guys), or the Post Office prompts an instant and irrational desire for focaccia and olive oil.

Nature hath no muse equal to thy crumpled splendor.

Similarly, the sight of a crumpled napkin or envelope and a well nibbled pencil inspires me to draw landscapes. This is always the origin of any of my landscape designs. It's a relaxed place without mistakes, expectations or a fixed destination. It's fun.

My nine year old introduced me to a perfect word to describe this process: adumbrate. It's similar to foreshadow without the spooky or negative connotations.



So, enough adumbration already!  Let's jump into what this post is about: early-in-the process sketches of some of our landscape projects.

Thumbnail sketches are a great way to contrast and compare disparate surface materials as well as reconciling elevations. With this illustration, I was exploring ways of transitioning from the formal granite surface of the upper patio to the informal stone patio and fire feature below it.

The simplest lines can capture the essence of an idea: a wall-mounted recirculating water feature to psychologically enclose a patio.

More elaborate sketches can help refine the architectural style of the hardscape and how it relates to the topography of the site.












This is typical of the built out version of a sketch: less elaborate with cleaner lines.






A few months back I completed a series of exploratory sketches to try out different ideas for a bocce court construction project.

Here's another case of uber-simplification in the build out. We stuck with the timber frame for the bocce court, but jettisoned the stacked ends. We also cut out the benches and firepit but used the drystack andesite for terracing and to delineate rooms and corridors within the new garden space.

I sketched this out to understand the slope of the site.  I envisioned the wall emerging out of the slope as if it had been recently excavated in an archeological dig.







Once the ground thaws, we'll partially cover up the back side to create the "hey this has been here all along" charade, but let's just keep that secret between us, okay?

The next stage in this same project will be the construction of a three level patio space that will be the heart of the landscape.

The upper portion of the patio (a formal outdoor dining space) will contain a drystack fire cube, a zero-edge spa, and a raised planting bed and water feature.

Working through a series of sketches was critical in understanding how all these components will ultimately relate to each other.

The zero-edge spa and planter are complete, but the ground needs to thaw a bit for the flatwork and rock work to begin...














Until then, I draw.

Vertical Gardening at -7 F

I've been working on compiling a list of tough natives and climate adapted species that could survive in a vertical garden application through our Boise winter with little or no care. In May, I was commissioned to build my first "xeric" vertical garden, so I used this opportunity to try out both drought AND cold tolerant plant varieties. 

Although I'm very interested to see how true Idaho natives like Eriogonum (Buckwheat) would do in a vertical installation, I settled on cultivated plants that are pretty easy to find in Boise nurseries: Hemerocallis 'Double Moses Fire' , Nepeta 'Walker's Low' , Artemisia 'Powis Castle' , Yucca, Sedum and Stachys byzantina 'Helene Von Stein'. 

The first pic shows the wall right after it was installed at the end of May. The second shows growth after the first six weeks. 

In a classic case of be careful of what you wish for, I was hoping we'd have a real winter here in Boise this year so I could get a true sense of the durability of these plants. 

My wish has been granted.

I snapped some pics of the wall a few days ago after we'd dropped convincingly below zero more than once.

Alive, but looking pretty freeze dried. The Artemisia, Stachys and Yucca are bravely continuing to provide evergrey winter interest, but everything else has pretty much given up.

Some closeups...

Tough-as-nails Lamb's Ear (Stachys byzantina) still hanging in there.

Sedum tetractinum looking a lot like the frozen grapes my mother fed me as a kid. Artemisia 'Powis Castle' taking the frigid weather in stride.

Yucca rostrata 'Sapphire Skies' looking exactly the same as the day I planted it.

We'll see how things are looking in February and then again in May. 

I'd love to get any xeric/cold hardy plant suggestions for vertical applications!

Tree Removal: A Day in the Life of a Tree Climber

At Willowglenn, the majority of the tree work we do consists of structural and maintenance pruning. When someone approaches us about tree removal, I generally try to talk them out of it.  I figure there are plenty of companies out there that will gladly take your cash to remove a tree for any reason.  By taking a conservative stand on tree removal, I hope to counterbalance their eagerness.

Tree removal is, however, a critical element of urban forest management.  Boise's moniker as the City of Trees is nice but belies the fact that our urban forest is a human construct and needs to be managed as such.

Diseased, damaged or dangerous trees obviously need to be removed but so do trees that have the potential to cause a Hatfield and McCoy style feud between neighbors.  This particular pine had been planted right up against the property line, and had a taken to leaning towards the neighbors house.

Even worse, the pine also provided ladder fuels right up to their wood shake roof.















A nice looking Red Oak was also about 10 feet away and really needs more space to develop an even canopy.  The pine had  also long since shed its lower juvenile limbs and didn't even provide the  screening that was originally intended.  It was definitely time to get rid of the tree.

View of Table Rock atop the pine

The challenge, of course, for most urban tree removal is how to do it in such a way as to not punch a hole in a roof, collapse a gazebo or flatten someone's new 30K ipe deck.  Fortunately, there was a narrow pea gravel footpath that ran directly under the tree.  So, rather than utilize a complicated rigging system, I decided to take the tree down in firewood size pieces and drop it on the path below (convenient, as it's eventually headed to our wood stove anyway).

When I bid a tree removal job, I factor in a few different things such as: what kind of tree (hardwood? softer wood?), height, high-value targets around the base of the tree, and how many leaders the tree has. Multi-leader trees take the longest because you're essentially removing multiple trees within the canopy.  This pine had five separate leaders so I knew that I was looking at a full day's worth of work for myself and a ground crew.

Aside from knowing that I'm going to smeared in sap, I usually look forward to working in pines.  An even lattice work of branches (most of the time) makes it pretty easy to move around.

The first thing I do is find the tallest leader in the tree and secure my cambium saver as high up as it will go.  This is where my climbing rope is attached to the tree.  Attaching myself to the rope requires tying on the end of one side of the rope with a termination knot and attaching midway on the other side of the rope with a friction hitch knot that allows me to self-belay.  My favorite hitch knot is called a Valdotain Tress.  With this hitch, it's easy to ascend the tree but catches you should you slip (by putting a kink in the rope).

      






I like to minimize the amount of chainsaw time as much as possible when I'm roped into a tree, so I begin by removing all the branches with a 4" caliper or smaller with a hand saw.

Once that's done, I begin using a chainsaw and a steel-core "flip line" as redundant fall protection just in case I accidentally cut through my climbing rope or my harness.














Slowly, I work my way down the shorter leaders and then move on to removing the main leader.

 

With the help of my hard working ground crew, we were able to complete the removal just as we started losing our light for the day.

Done!