ABSTRACT: Yesterday afternoon, approximately 100 individuals attended the presentations by Barrie D. Coate, Consulting Arborist, and Dave Egbert, “The Coastal Gardener,” at Carpenter Hall, Sunset Center, sponsored by the Friends of Carmel Forest and the Forest and Beach Commission. Friends of Carmel Forest President Clayton Anderson, Friends of Carmel Forest founder and former City Councilwoman Barbara Livingston and Forest and Beach Commissioner Kathleen Coss addressed the audience and presented the speakers. The first speaker, Barrie D. Coate, Consulting Arborist, spoke on “Tree Care and Proper Pruning” for about 1 hour, visually illustrated with slides of properly and improperly pruned trees. Then, Dave Egbert, the enthusiastic and passionate “Coastal Gardener,” spoke about landscape plants under native trees for about 1 hour. Egbert brought specimen plants from Valley Hills Nursery in Carmel Valley to demonstrate the varied, diverse and colorful native and exotic plants available and suitable for planting under and around native trees. Audience questions of both speakers were answered during the afternoon until after 5:00 P.M. Note: Mayor Sue McCloud, City Council Members Paula Hazdovac, Karen Sharp, Ken Talmage & Gerard Rose were not seen at the city co-sponsored event. Acting City Forester Mike Branson was in attendance.
Herewith are Barrie D. Coate and Associates’ TREE CARE AND PROPER PRUNING handout reproduced below which basically covers the material he presented to the public and Dave Egbert’s “Landscape Plants for under Native Tree” handout reproduced below including information about his Coastal Gardener TV series, plant nurseries and bibliography, as follows:
TREE CARE AND PROPER PRUNING
Dr. Al Shigo, who died last year, was for thirty years the nation’s most respected researcher in applied plant physiology, the science which describes a tree’s response to man-caused tree damage, including pruning.
In his “a new Tree Biology” (1968) he said the “Pruning properly done is one of the most difficult tree treatments. Every branch will be different.”
This is a good beginning for a discussion of pruning, especially of pruning trees, because poor pruning in trees usually lives with the trees as long as they live and if those pruning errors occur early in a tree’s life, the tree will be doomed to limb failure and a short life. A flush cur made today will result in interior decay in ten years which can certainly result in tree failure in twenty years.
If you think that anyone can prune properly without instruction, you have probably already been responsible for damage that will become evident in later years.
Unfortunately, excessive pruning is the most visible, and has become the “standard of trade,” leading homeowners and facilities managers to expect to see instant major changes in the tree’s form and canopy density before they pay the bill.
As a result, it is very difficult for the more knowledgeable arborists to “sell” better quality, less destructive work.
Several definitive statements can be used to describe the pruning done by most tree companies and most gardeners including:
“More damage is done by poor pruning than benefit provided by good pruning.”
“Most tree pruning seen today is harmful.”
“Many professional gardeners do not know how to make the least destructive cuts.”
O.K., enough criticism! How do you make proper cuts? How do you know how much to remove? How do you know when to prune which plant? How do you know which tool to use, and when? How do you know when to call for professional help? Whom do you call?
Basic philosophy
The best pruning causes the plant to produce new growth where you want it so that it will not have to be removed later.
The best pruning is done to prevent growth from being produced in the wrong place.
If you can prune today with your thumb nail rather than in five years with a chain saw, you have saved the tree from investing in parts that were later discarded and avoided leaving large wounds.
The best pruning produces the smallest cuts and is the least visible.
From the standpoint of pruning, we should divide the tree’s development into four stages.
They are juvenile, developmental, mature and over-mature.
The stage at which most of us can be either highly beneficial or very harmful to the tree is during the juvenile and developmental stages when the tree is producing the basic structure, some of which will be with the tree all of its life.
At the juvenile stage, the tree should have temporary branches almost to the ground to supply carbohydrates and starches to develop a strong sturdy trunk which is capable of supporting the canopy and provide enough vascular tissue to feed a large and growing canopy.
At these stages, any permanent limbs which can be identified should be selected and their training begun.
The juvenile stage may occupy three to eight years. The development stage may occupy an additional ten to twenty years.
If the selection and pruning of the permanent branches and limbs was done during the first stages, very little corrective pruning of main structural limbs will be necessary for another ten years. Unfortunately, most of us have to deal with basic structures which the tree produced without guidance or which was damaged by untrained people who should not have been using pruning tools.
If the tree did not have the best scaffold limbs selected during the developmental stage, it will be necessary to do corrective pruning in a mature tree.
The means larger wounds, removal of proportionately more foliage and more damage but it may be necessary to solve structural defects which will become more hazardous as the tree ages.
Over-mature trees are those which are not producing much new vascular tissue, and whose scaffold limbs’ position and character have been long established and which no longer respond to pruning by production of parts which will ever be structural.
At this stage, pruning cuts should be two inches diameter or less since wounds will be covered by new tissue very slowly if ever.
At this state, loss of a major limb probably serves as prediction of loss of other large limbs and the natural disassembly of the tree.
References you should have:
A Tree Care Primer, Handbook 186
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Christopher Roddick with Beth Hanson
All Regional Guides
1000 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11225
Arboriculture, Integrated management of Landscape Trees and Shrubs
Richard Harris, Prentiss Hall
Tree Pruning, A Worldwide Photo Guide
Alex Shigo, Shigo and Trees Associates
Barrie D. Coate, ASCA
Consulting Arborist
September, 2007
NOTE: ASCA is the American Society of Consulting Arborists; http://www.asca-consultants.org/
Dave Egbert’s Landscape Plants for under Native Trees Handout is reproduced below and information about his Coastal Gardener TV series, plant nurseries and bibliography, as follows:
“Growing Beautiful Gardens under Native Trees”
Landscape Plants for under Native Trees – Dave Egbert’s Coastal Gardener
Aquilegia hybrids, Columbine
Arctostaphylos ‘Pacific Mist,’ ‘Sunset,’ ‘Carmel Sur’
Asarum caudatum, Wild Ginger
Boronia ‘Shark Bay’
Carpentaria californica, Bush Anemone
Ceanothus ‘Centinnel,’ ‘Far Horizons,’ ‘Diamond Heights’
Galvezia speciosa, Island Snapdragon
Grevillea ‘Austraflors Fanfare,’ ‘Coastal Gen.,’ ‘Mount Tamboritha’
Heuchera mazima, Island Alum Root
(Hybrids, ‘Pewter Veil,’ ‘Chocolate Ruffles,’ ‘Marmalade,’ ‘Amber Waves’)
Iris Pacific Coast hybrids
(I. douglasiana x l. innominata)
Polysticum munitum, Western Sword Fern
Salvia ‘Bee’s Bliss,’ ‘Dara’s Choice,’ spathacea, Hummingbird Sage
Saturjea douglasii, Yerba Buena
Sollya heterophylla
Symphocarpus albus, Snowberry
Tiarella hybrids (x Heucherella), including ‘Viking Ship,’ ‘Stoplight’
Verbena
Woodwardia fimbriata, Giant Chain Fern
Zauschneria hybrids ‘Catalina,’ ‘Cloverdale,’ ‘Everrett’s Choice’
Dave Egbert:
Dave Egbert’s Coastal Gardener TV series
KGO ABC 7
www.thecoastalgardener.com
(Note: Click on Post title above for more information about "The Coastal Gardener.")
Plants Available at:
Valley Hills Nursery
7440 Carmel Valley Rd.
Carmel Valley, CA.
831-624-3482
www.valleyhillsnursey.com
Sierra Azul Nursery and Gardens
2660 East Lake Avenue
Watsonville, CA.
831-763-0939
www.sierraazul.com
Bibliography:
Sunset Western Garden Book
Sunset Publishing, 2007
www.sunset.com
California Native Plants for the Garden
Carol Bornstein, David Fross, Bart O’Brien
Cachuma Press, 2005
www.cachumapress.com
1 comment:
Dave Egbert is passionate, knowledgeable and very entertaining when it comes to plants, scrubs, trees and organic things. What a good idea to bring plants to demonstrate. His story about how he came to plant the shoots in the rock wall and how it is now a cascade of beautiful foliage and flowers was inspirational and amazing.
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