Proper Pruning of Trees & Shrubs

[00:00:03]All right, good morning. Uh my name is Gary Matsoka and we're here at the Moon Hills Nursery. It's a Saturday morning and today's topic is going to be on pruning. This is a there's a lot of information on pruning, so I'll try not to dwell too much on the little things. Um pruning wise, generally we either use loopers. I forgot to bring my loppers in here. most pe for most things you know 99% of what you do hand pruners are just fine now I use I happen to use Coronas which were you know the the company's over 100 years old they started out as being a citrus uh for the citrus orchards in California so these are made for egg culture they generally don't fall apart Um, we also have some inexpensive pruner line that's welld designed, but the pieces aren't as as durable. So, for most amateur home gardeners, the less expensive ones we have, um, this company's, uh, called Field Goo from Japan. Um, theirs work well, but I I sold some to a professional pruner and within about couple days he could break them. They just wear out. If you're pruning as much as he does, which is four or five hours a day, uh, the parts on these may not last that long. I keep sending the ones back to the company. Uh see if they can improve their cheaper models, but that's probably going to mean they're the price is going to go up. But these are like $17.

[00:01:56]So if you're going to prune just a few rose bushes, this is great. Um these are $65.

[00:02:06]Uh and if you're pruning, you know, if you have a 100 rows rose garden, you'd use one of these, not one of these.

[00:02:13]But uh now just so you know, the most accurate pruning cuts you can make are with saws. They're cleaner than pruners.

[00:02:23]But uh pruners are just easier to handle because you can do all the operations in one hand. Whereas a saw you need to control the plant with one hand, the saw with the other. It's not. And sometimes if you're cutting a branch off, you need to hold on to the branch while you're pruning it. So saws aren't as good because they're not quite as as uh convenient as a as a hand pruner, but they do make accurate cuts. And you can cut a tree down that's got a 6-in diameter trunk with one of these.

[00:02:56]There's no way a pruner can do that. So a little saw can cut down a fairly large tree.

[00:03:03]Of course, now we have uh power saws, chainsaws. So, those make everything easier.

[00:03:14]Okay. So, why do we prune plants at all?

[00:03:17]A lot of plants, you know, they they fruit better if you prune them a lot. A lot of plants flower better if you prune them a lot.

[00:03:28]So, a lot of it's just aesthetics.

[00:03:31]um a lot of shapes we like better. Now fortunately in the world of trees the best looking trees are usually structurally stronger. So shape often follows function.

[00:03:46]Uh a lot of things in you know that we design for function are also prettier shaped objects too. So in plants that happens to hold true a lot. uh the stronger the better looking shapes are usually stronger also. So on especially on shade trees you the only plants we really worried about the shape are going to be the trees that grow big uh and the strength that is the strength of the tree um are trees that tend to want to grow 60 80 foot because if they break branches or fall over they're going to kill they can damage property they can kill people. Uh fruit trees, no we we trim for production, but shade trees we prune for strength. So there's a couple differences there. Now what happens when we prune a plant? So plants have growth regions. Usually at the end of each branch there is a there are uh growth sections the growth tips where all the leaves are being made. There's a lot of hormones that that growth tip makes that travel through the plant by gravity. So the most hormones this growth tip are producing. Now the hormone is called oxen which is just a general term for a what we usually call well there's different kinds napthetic acid there's different indole acetic acid there's different kinds of hormones but we in general we call them oxen what their job is is to inhibit growth of side branches on this plant.

[00:05:35]So at the base of each leaf there's a little bud. So um the way plants woody plants are constructed uh the leaves are attached at a node and in each node there's at least one bud.

[00:05:50]Now we've found plants with nodes that have no buds but that's unusual. Usually at the node where the leaf is attached to the stem there is at least one bud and it's usually surrounded by secondary buds. So that if if if you need to, the plant can grow a new branch right from those buds. And there's more than one at each node.

[00:06:13]But those side branches, the the buds are being inhibited by the oxen coming down the stem by gravity.

[00:06:21]So you can see this plant which is already about 5 foot tall. There's no side branching.

[00:06:28]Now the way nature usually creates side branches. This branch gets like 10 foot long. It starts to do you know this the weight of it. It starts to do this and when it does that the oxen goes the opposite direction. This area here has doesn't have any more oxin. And these buds usually open up and you get another branch. So if this branch weighs itself down just by the length of it, it'll start branching all over the place actually because the oxin's no longer getting down there. Now the other way you can do it is you suddenly cut off the top of this tree.

[00:07:04]There's no more oxin coming down from the top. These buds here, usually two to four buds just start growing. Of course, as soon as they start growing a branch, then they're inhibiting the rest of the tree again and they're on their own branches. Now, each leaf makes a bit of oxen, too. So, if this leaf is attached, this bud often doesn't grow. However, you strip the leaves off, a lot of these buds also start growing, especially down lower on the plant. These leaves already fell off from old age. These buds may start growing at any time because the oxin has so far to go to get down there, they may not be under its influence anymore.

[00:07:46]Now, it's interesting. low oxin levels that the roots experience is actually a growth hormone for the roots.

[00:07:54]So roots respond to low oxin levels whereas branching is inhibited by high oxin levels but the same oxin by the time it gets down the roots it's making them grow.

[00:08:05]Vitamin B1 is an oxin that we used to recommend for um making plants roots grow.

[00:08:18]But it has to be at low levels. If you put too much vitamin B down, then it it's going to inhibit the roots. So you have to be careful with that one.

[00:08:27]Okay. So that's what happens.

[00:08:30]Um now some plants like this one are very aptically dominant which means dachshin coming down here is controlling this plant. You don't see much side branching growing.

[00:08:42]So we would generally call this a true tree. It may grow 10 feet before the side branches start coming out. Whereas this is a true bush.

[00:08:56]It's like it doesn't want even make a center branch. Everything wants to be a side branch.

[00:09:02]You don't have to do any pruning at all to make this thing real bushy. It's it's it won't grow into a tree. It just wants to side branch. Here's some other plants that are more bushy.

[00:09:15]You can see that from the tip of this branch, you go down just to about two or three inches and the side branches start growing.

[00:09:29]So, this really want Now, this can be trained into a tree. You just cut off all the bottom branches and what you don't want to and you can make it look like a tree but naturally it's got a very bushy type of growth on it.

[00:09:48]>> Are you able to show a customer the berry?

[00:09:51]>> So that's more the difference between bushes and trees. Although trees we usually say grow at least 3 m or 10t tall uh to make them a true tree. Now tree wise we'll talk about shade trees for just a bit are trees that grow big.

[00:10:09]Um, there are some really strong structures in nature and I forgot to bring a redwood tree in here, but one of the older evolved trees are conifers.

[00:10:21]And generally the strongest shape for a conifer are what are called warls of branches.

[00:10:28][snorts] So a pine tree or redwood tree, they'll grow, you know, a foot or two and then put out side branches.

[00:10:38]And you know, we all know what Christmas trees look like. That's essentially what they do. And these branches gets longer and longer.

[00:10:47]And for a conifer, that's pretty much the strongest shape. Although what does happen over a long period of time where these branches attach to the trunk, they're all coming off the same spot.

[00:11:04]And as that tree gets bigger, these branches get bigger. And a lot of times what that does is it pinches off, you know, all these branches are attached at the same place. And after a while, they start pinching each other off. the ones that have a little more sunlight will pinch off the circulations to the ones next to them. So, when you see older uh redwood trees or older pine trees, a lot of times there's only one branch left on that level and then one branch over here, one branch over here. There's not worlds of branches like they started out because there's too many branches at each level.

[00:11:41]So, one by one, they just kind of give up. So plants actually kill off their branches just by, you know, if the branch is too small. Like here's a little tiny, [clears throat] you can see where a lot of little branches died on their own on this tree.

[00:11:55]And this one will probably get pinched off too. There the what trunks and branches are. They're a collection of tubes that brings the circulation to the leaves and little branches can get totally engulfed by the tubes of the other branches and it does pinch off their circulation and does kill them. If they don't have enough sunlight on that branch and the branch is not growing fast enough, that branch will often die.

[00:12:28]>> Yes. Um what type of plants uh generally have you seen that they do pepper butts on the leaves like above leaves?

[00:12:37]>> What was it? What was that?

[00:12:38]>> Sorry definition.

[00:12:39]>> You said there are some there are a few plants although not common that they don't have the buds above the leaf stem.

[00:12:46]Uh what types of plants did you see that?

[00:12:49]>> A rose.

[00:12:50]>> Oh, okay.

[00:12:51]>> So you you I look at a rose sometimes and the plant makes a mistake. It's got a leaf here. And I look at, you know, I wanted to cut it there and go, "Well, there's no bud there at all.

[00:13:02]You don't even see a thing. It's just a crease on the stem where the leaf was attached." You know, once in a while that happens cuz I remember when I used to buy I used to be our rosarian. So, I would be pruning thousands of rows every week and every every so often I'd see that. I go, "Okay, there's no no buds here, so I can't cut it there." But that's not common. But it does happen.

[00:13:25]And so it probably happens on most plants. Just I used to be the rose guy.

[00:13:29]So I saw so many examples of that.

[00:13:33][clears throat] >> I have a second question if that's okay.

[00:13:35]>> Uh I know that in nature trees tend to grow as fast as possible so they're not outshaded by their uh fellow compatriots also trying to grow. But when you're growing a tree under artificial conditions or like that you're manipulating, is it better to top it off so that it grows more side branches?

[00:13:55]Like is it too weak when it grows vertically?

[00:13:58]>> Depends what you want to do.

[00:14:00]>> Okay.

[00:14:00]>> I mean, if it's a fruit tree, we want to top it. If it's if it's a shade tree, you might want to let it grow straight.

[00:14:06]It just depends what you want out of it.

[00:14:09]>> So, like you know, the the industry grows a lot of trees for the street.

[00:14:13]Well, tree trees can't have any branches below five and a half feet from the ground because you got to walk by them.

[00:14:19][clears throat] So, they have to train them straight up as fast as they can. Uh whereas fruit trees, we want, you know, we don't want to reach top, you know, get go on ladders to get fruit anymore. So, we want them to branch fairly low. So, there's different needs there, too. But let's talk about shade [snorts] trees for a little bit again.

[00:14:40]So conifers naturally have a real strong shape.

[00:14:44]>> Yeah, but I saw some they don't have any branch at all. I mean long long.

[00:14:50]>> Well, yeah. Yeah. Older trees, a lot of these get too much shade from above and they just fall off.

[00:14:57]>> Oh, naturally.

[00:14:58]>> Yeah, >> they look somewhere trim but not >> Well, they can fall off or someone can trim them too. So now what one thing I should mention is that most trees if you cut them to a bare part of the tree, [clears throat] the buds that are located where the leaves used to be attached will sprout out. But there are some plants that don't do that. If the leaf is already missing or the buds attached, you take, you know, the leaves down here are missing and if you cut it down here, they will not respout. Now, that's rare, but it is out there. So, most pine trees, if you cut it down and there's no needles left on the branch you cut, they won't regrow.

[00:15:46]Most proteas and lucross sperms in the proteia family, if you cut it below the last leaf, that branch is going to die.

[00:15:55]Um, some um Oh, I forgot the other planos.

[00:16:01]Um, leptosperums also are that way. If you cut it below the last leaves on the tree, you know, the branch won't respout.

[00:16:14]However, most plants do. Junipers and most fruit trees, if you cut them short, they respout from bare wood forever. It's like you can cut them down uh when they're 100 years old, they'll still respout.

[00:16:28]So, we don't have to worry about that too much. But certain plants you got to worry about um that [snorts] don't resp sprout from bare wood. Like my dad says uh he was a bonsai artist and they were shaping you know black pines are kind of commonly grown as as bonesai but my dad says we do that to prove that we're good at this because with the black pine tree you can't make any mistakes.

[00:16:55]you make a mistake and you got to start over with a new tree because you cut off the branch and it's not going to regrow or if you don't have a branch there, it's never going to grow another one there. So, they said using black pine as a bonesai specimen meant you're a master. If you can make a gorgeous black pine into a bonesai, you're doing a good job. Junipers, anybody can do that. But a black pine is is the difficult one to uh make it shaped exactly the way it we want it. You know, the masters want it to be uh the first time around.

[00:17:31]Okay. So, the next shape of nature that's real common is a true vase.

[00:17:39]That's common and also strong where a trunk goes from one to two, from two to four, from four to eight, all evenly branched. And a couple plants that are commonly seen that way are maples [clears throat] and uh red buds.

[00:18:03]And what's interesting about these trees is when they branch They usually have buds on opposite sides of the stem. So the they have the center branch and then they make two branches on opposite sides. And sometimes the center branch dies out and the two sides take over making you making that um vase shape. And red bud trees the same thing.

[00:18:32]They have a tendency to have buds, two buds, uh, on the same place and then they'll branch out two different ways.

[00:18:47]Like here's a point here. You can't probably can't see it in the back where it had choice of three branches and we saved this the one in the middle, cut off that one. But they happen to do that a lot where you get one to two, one to two, one to two all the way up and it makes a nice sturdy shape for the tree. What's also interesting about red buds is the first year growth the leaves are attached all in one plane.

[00:19:17]So the branches go all like this and then the next year all the branches go this way and then the next year from those branches they go that way. So they kind of fill in the gaps as every year as they go.

[00:19:34]>> Um, so you wouldn't talk to because you said you saved that blend, >> right? On this tree is too short.

[00:19:49]>> Okay. So on this particular plant, you know, all these branches in in five years, we won't have them anymore because I want this most red buds, you want them to be a shade tree that'll go over your head.

[00:20:02]>> So the first branches on this tree that we want to save may be from right here, will form here. So we got to grow this tree for a while still and then after that we slowly start cutting off all the branches from the bottom up. So, and so you wouldn't even in the fall wouldn't trim this back right now from on the sides.

[00:20:23]>> I might trim it these a little shorter.

[00:20:25]>> Okay.

[00:20:25]>> So, they don't and we don't want these to to rival the thick. You know, if this gets too strong and it's thicker than this, you don't want it.

[00:20:33]>> Okay?

[00:20:34]>> So, that's one thing that we do as we train trees. Like, I could have made this branch, the trunk, the main trunk, instead of this one. At this point, they're they're really rubbery and flexible. You can make any branch you want the main tree and then maybe trim this shorter so it doesn't get too much strength so that uh this is thicker.

[00:21:05][clears throat] They're fast, but they don't get any wider than about 10 foot. And they don't get any taller. Most of them don't get taller than 10 foot. The foliage doesn't. So, uh, yeah, you could, if you want to shade a a spot really fast, they'll do it in one ear, but then they'll never get any bigger than that.

[00:21:24]>> I just want shaded bench 561. I think that'll work.

[00:21:29]>> All right. So, we got the the the vase shape. Now, the other structure that we often use is called the delayed vase, which this is a walnut tree, but it's going to grow 60 to 80 foot. So, you'd want to uh have it as strong as you can. So, generally, it's like a vase shape, but we always keep a center leader. So, it's dividing one branch, you know, it's like right here was one branch. Now it's two.

[00:22:02]Right here was one and now it's two. But they're going out outwards. So the side branches go outward. So they call that a delayed vase where you have one that you keep straight in the middle and then you have a branch going here that way, maybe a branch coming forward, branch going to the back. You want to kind of have them go up the trunk in a spiral pattern ideally with one main trunk. Now here, this tree has now got two main trunks. So what we'll have to do is eventually get rid of this one or cut it short now for it to become a side branch.

[00:22:42]Sometimes if you just pull it sideways and make go like this, it no longer competes with the the main trunk.

[00:22:51]So tie it down, cut it short.

[00:22:55]Thing some things you can do. So you want to develop one main trunk. Uh also as walnut tree grows the side branches will get about a foot and a half thick. I mean the trunk will be like 3 foot in diameter. Side branches will be over 1t thick. Well when they're spaced these are spaced like 6 in apart. There's no room for them.

[00:23:22]So, as the tree grows bigger and bigger, if they don't fall off by themselves, you'll have to choose which branches you want to be side branches and make sure like if you save this branch here, that eventually maybe the next closest branch will be this one here because you need room for that branch to develop 18 inches in diameter.

[00:23:45][clears throat] Now again, most trees the side branches will thin them themselves out naturally, but sometimes they make mistakes. So you might want to guide it along the way, keep cutting some of the branches, you eventually want to cut off totally, keep them small. We don't like to do too much pruning when the tree is young because each each time you remove some branches, it slows down the development of the trunk.

[00:24:12]Again, because the trunk is just a collection of all the tubes going up and down the tree from the foliage chimney shorten.

[00:24:27]It can. Although if the tree had structural problems beginning, it can certainly help. But pruning always hurts the tree. Now, the one thing to know about trees is that they're not like animals. So, plants don't heal their wounds.

[00:24:47]They plug them up, but they don't heal them. Like, you cut your you cut your hand real badly. Um, and I've done that several times when I'm pruning [laughter] and grafting. Um, your body will heal that wound within a few months. You don't even recognize the wounded area. I mean, occasionally you'll have a real bad wound and you always see the scar, but most wounds I get few months later, I don't even remember where they were because your body, animal bodies tend to repair themselves perfectly.

[00:25:22]>> Yeah. uh on wounds. Whereas plants, if you cut this trunk here, that cut will always be there with inside the tree. The plant does not have the ability to now, now [clears throat] this is a branch off a really young tree.

[00:25:48]And you'll notice where the branches are attached to the main branch. There's a bulge there.

[00:25:58]So the tubes running down this main trunk, we'll call it a trunk, actually form this bulge around this branch. The branches tubes go inside that. So it's like in a a tree, a branch in a socket.

[00:26:14]Now, 80 years ago, we pruned plants differently. We said, "Make sure you clut it as close as you can to the trunk. Don't leave any bulges."

[00:26:27]Because they noticed that when they did it real close to the trunk, the trunk healed over that area, it put uh new bark over that area quicker than if you left the bulge there. But when the forest department started doing testing 50 years ago, they found out that if you cut into this part, this bulging part, which is actually part of the tubes wearing down up and down the trunk, you do a lot of damage internally up and down that inside that trunk.

[00:27:00]If you cut outside the bulge, you do no damage to this part here. All the only damages to the original branch, the wood going inside here is damaged, but you're not damaging the trunk at all. So, in the old days, we did that close cutting as close as you can uh because aesthetically from the outside, it was more pleasing. But now that they know that it does serious internal damage, we stay outside the bulgy area.

[00:27:34]So every plant has kind of this bulgy area that you won't don't want to touch.

[00:27:38]You just want to cut the if you want to cut this branch off, you cut as close to the bulge as you can. Now, [clears throat] sometimes it's harder to see the bulge.

[00:27:50]And there's also on this older, this is a branch off an older peach tree. Uh you can see where the I got to backtrack a little bit.

[00:28:01][clears throat] So the way a plant's constructed, the part of a branch or trunk that's growing is the cambium layer, a ring of cells that divide underneath the bark on top of the wood. So the wood's in the middle.

[00:28:32]And every every year there's a ring a new ring of wood. So the wood in the middle is called the um xyllem.

[00:28:46]And then the bark on the outside is also known as phum.

[00:29:01]And so the cambium is growing bark outwards and wood inwards. So this ring is expands outwards every year. It puts on a new layer pretty much once a year.

[00:29:13]Uh and the bark is growing outwards. Now some bark on some plants doesn't stretch too well and it it splits and then you get a corkier look.

[00:29:24]Some bark doesn't stretch at all and it strips off every year. you get a smooth trunk like eucalyptus. A lot of the eucalyptus have this real smooth trunk because the bark just split off. The outer layer of bark split off. But on a cork oak, that bark will be there a long, long time. You get this real thick corky layer of bark. Um, so the flow from the roots to the leaves is through the xylem.

[00:29:54]The outer xyllem is called the sapwood because it's newer. It usually conducts most of the water going up from the root. The center of the tree is a heart wood. It's sap wood that no longer functions to bring up water. It just sits there. So that's the heartwood in the middle of the tree. Uh the bark is where the tubes running down from the leaves back down to the roots are connected. So the roots need food. They need the sugars that the leaves are making from photosynthesis to stay alive and sugars are also turned into cellulose which is the structure of the plant. So that goes down to the roots through the bark or phum that's the downflow.

[00:30:36]So we have two things going on in a plant the bark and the wood.

[00:30:41]>> Yes. um are in older trees are there multiple layers of phum or do the inner layers of phum kind of um diminish and then >> don't know I haven't read enough about how long you know like sapwood will stay active three or four years or even longer >> I don't know on trees if the different phums uh live different lengths are functional for different I don't know that >> I will ask a dendrologist [laughter] >> yeah but if rocks stretched off how the water go down how the leaves stop go down the rock off he said some people speak their rocks >> I didn't quite get >> so you said the leaves stop the goes down through the box right >> but if all the rocks stripped off by stretching >> well it's it can break off outer layers but it's always making new bark >> so you always should have bark on the tree um and it can repair you know the cambium repairs the bark too if it can.

[00:31:47]So so those are the layers of the plants.

[00:31:51]Um, so if you draw [snorts] here, say the bark of a tree, the branch, the bark from the branch and the bark of the trunk are actually colliding >> right between the two.

[00:32:21]We call that a bark branch ridge. And you can kind of see it right here. So this bark is from this branch. This bark is from this one. And they collide right there. Make that little crease. You can see it on both sides. This ridge here is the collision of the bark from this and this. [clears throat] And you can see another area where it collided right here with this side branch makes a little ridge. It's called the bark branch ridge.

[00:32:51]So the tubes inside now on the side branch that kind of intermingle with the tubes running from the trunk of the tree.

[00:33:07]So they're all going down like that.

[00:33:10]So if you want to cut off this side branch, you don't want to cut off any of the tubes of the regular tree. So you'd make your cut. Well, they they actually say you do this. You go, okay, the angle of the bark branch ridge parallel down the trunk and then go out at the same angle as that. Those are equal angles. There's no tubes of this trunk beyond that point. So they always say cut it like that.

[00:33:43]And then so if you leave too much stub out here, of course, this branch can grow back. If you don't want the branch to grow back, you cut it right along that line there.

[00:33:53]Now, if you want to cut off the main trunk, you go right down the branch bark branch ridge cuz there's no tubes from this branch going above that line.

[00:34:10]What you don't want to do is leave a stub like this.

[00:34:17]That would be called topping a tree. If you top a tree, there's so much energy to make new branches from this.

[00:34:28]So, the reason we don't top because especially if you have a trunk say this big, and you top it, you get this branch like say you have a eucalyptus tree, it'll probably grow 20 foot in one year.

[00:34:40]But because plants are made in layers, you got this new branch that suddenly just grows 20 foot of growth.

[00:34:54]It's got one layer of wood to support that.

[00:35:01]And the next year if it grows another 10 ft, and it might want to, it'll just snap off from the weight.

[00:35:10]because there's not enough wood on it.

[00:35:12]So, what we do with trees, we're always supposed to cut them down to a lower branch that's already been there for a few years. So, it's stronger.

[00:35:20]So, you don't This is called topping or you are it's actually a heading cut because what happens when you cut off that you you race all the oxen coming down, you get a lot of branches wanting to just take off from the top of that cut. to cut it down to here.

[00:35:37]The oxen coming down this branch won't let any of that stuff sprout.

[00:35:42]So, this becomes the top of the tree at that point and it's got its strength. It already has its full strength. It's been there a while.

[00:35:54]So when you lower the size of a big tree, you cut it down to a side existing side branch and then it won't do this and have those branches break off. Yes.

[00:36:06]>> Okay. So if I hear you correctly about cut cutting um so I have a avocado tree.

[00:36:14]It's I bought it from you in like 26 years old. Got a nice big trunk but down on the bottom about maybe two or three feet up. It's got a branch that goes out and it's only about this big and you can tell it's it's pretty dead. It needs to come off. Um and so what you're saying is you don't want to cut it at the trunk. You want to cut it a little out, right? Is that correct?

[00:36:45]>> Well, you Yeah. Especially if a branch is already dead. Um, you can cut off.

[00:36:52]I mean, the plant already sealed its wound there. So, if you want to leave it for a while, it's better to cut it off.

[00:36:57]But, it's better. So, if you see a a branch that is obviously dead, say this branch is dead to here and then it's green after that and it's brown after this. When you cut that branch off, it's nice to get rid of it because all this deadwood can attract beetles, >> right, >> that eat dead wood.

[00:37:13]>> I mean, it's all pretty dead. But don't cut it into the green part of the tree.

[00:37:17]So, a lot of literature says cut into the green part to a, you know, if this was dead because it's totally diseased, you'd cut into the green part. But if this is dead and then you see an obvious green part here, don't cut into the green part because the tree sealed itself right there from between the dead and the and the good.

[00:37:38]>> I don't think there's any >> Okay, [clears throat] let's cut it all.

[00:37:41]Cut off what you see >> to all the way to the trunk.

[00:37:45]>> If it's dead all the way to the trunk.

[00:37:46]Yeah, go ahead.

[00:37:49]>> I mean, if there's a tiny bit in the middle, I don't know.

[00:37:53]>> Yeah, it's probably totally dead. If it's side branch, >> I probably take it off.

[00:37:58]>> Yeah. The other interesting thing about trees is the center of this trunk. It can seal. It's, you know, you make this cut, it seals, it's cut, but it can only do it once.

[00:38:15]So, if you, you know, if you cut off this branch here and it seals there and then you go an inch in and cut it again, it can't seal twice. And they when they seal, it's almost instantaneous. They say within a few seconds that wood has taken this sticker sugar that it's stored and makes a seal that bugs and diseases can't get through, but it can't do it again. If you damage that seal, it can't reseal itself.

[00:38:45]So, you know, if you if you if a branch breaks off jaggedly, it's nice to get rid of the jaggedness of it so it can heal over that or grow new bark over it better. But don't do too much on it because they can't seal their wounds twice. So, a lot of times if you make a cut here, it'll seal within a few inches of that cut, but if you cut it again, sometimes it retreats way down and makes to another point where it can make a seal. So you get a lot more damaged wood that way.

[00:39:15]>> Should you use something like the example that I'm getting? Should you put some type of I don't know product over it or just let it naturally >> right. Let it do it naturally. Um the forest department found that they you know they used to use tar or paint or something. Uh they found it had no positive effects on the tree. Didn't do anything. And sometimes it collected more moisture that made it rot more. Uh so they say plants generally have their own way of of sealing a wound. And if they're really sick, they can't seal it, but they couldn't do it anyway. I mean, they're they're probably going to die anyway if they're real real unhealthy trees. But if they're healthy, uh they can seal their wounds. So now on that same note, the worst time to prune a tree is right after the spring flush. So trees have all the energy stored in the in the wood of the tree near the areas that are growing. And when they put their first flush of leaves out in the spring, a lot of the energy is now on the foliage.

[00:40:26]uh you want to give them a few months of good sunny weather to get regrain their energy before you do a lot of pruning.

[00:40:33]So we don't prune usually in quote the trees spring. Now the tree spring could be like this year it was January for a lot of trees they were growing putting out their spring growth in January uh and by late spring they had enough energy stored up or even mid-spring they had enough energy stored up you can start pruning them but normally we don't prune in quote in the spring we prune in summer fall and winter because that's when the trees have a lot of good stored energy carbohydrates that they can seal wounds with.

[00:41:04]We all put like grafting tapes around wrapping that help.

[00:41:10]>> Doesn't help.

[00:41:11]>> Some people like wrapping like the cut would >> Yeah. No, you don't have to. Yeah. I mean, grafting tape we use for grafting cuz you know to hold the moisture into the stem, but uh doesn't help with normal pruning.

[00:41:26]So now there are a few things of concern. So on a few types of plants, an open wound, you get bugs going into it.

[00:41:37]Um, generally in nature, if you prune in the summer, you got good sap flow coming in that wound and that's what keeps the bugs out. You know, beetles try to bore into damaged wood.

[00:41:48]If there's sap coming out, they can't bore into it. So the sap flow is what keeps them out. Um the one thing that we're always cautioned with with a lot of trees is don't prune them when it's raining.

[00:42:05][clears throat] So you have those open wounds and the rains on them and it keeps them wet.

[00:42:10]That's when certain [clears throat] diseases, fungal diseases, bacterial diseases can get in there if it's a wet constantly wet surface.

[00:42:19][clears throat] And usually it's when it's raining. If you just water a tree after you prune it, nothing happens because the water didn't sit there long enough. But when it's raining, they are so humid, you can have a droplet of water sitting there for hours and hours because it does take hours for a fungus spore or a bacterial spore to sprout in the water and then make its way into the tree.

[00:42:44][clears throat] But if you only just wash the tree down with water and it evaporates within an hour, there's no time for disease to get in. So it's the water just sitting there during a rainstorm or after the rainstorm that causes a lot of that damage.

[00:43:00]So like four years ago, five years ago, we had all these bare root trees coming in. It was we had a lot of rain that winter when the baroot trees were arriving. And you know, bare root trees, there's a lot of damage going on because they're all bundled up. We dragging across the parking lot. We stack them up. Uh, a lot of little damage points on those trees. But we had a lot of cases of bleeding gumosis all over those trees that year. Had never seen it before because it usually doesn't rain when we're bringing the trees in, but they're getting these bleeding wounds that cut off all the circulation above the wound.

[00:43:38]we'd have to amputate a lot of the tree tops off to stop that. So, a lot of the, you know, because of that incident, a lot of books do recommend don't prune when it's raining.

[00:43:50]Now, because five years ago, they had so much incident of that across the state uh from the from trees being planted at that time, you know, barewood trees are being planted um processed, all that. A lot of those trees got got all this infection going on. So now they know, you know, don't prune right when it's raining.

[00:44:12]>> This year with Delino, it's probably going to be wet.

[00:44:16]>> It may be. It may be. No.

[00:44:26]Now, some trees seal better than others.

[00:44:29]So, among all the trees known, it turns out that apple trees seal their wounds the best.

[00:44:40]So, they, you know, they you cut an apple tree, you're not going to kill it.

[00:44:44]It just seals that wound up really well and you can keep cutting it, keep cutting it. Now, the worst ceiling tree known is close related to apple peach >> peach trees.

[00:44:56]the worst ceiling tree known. You cut off a branch, you got a wound about the same size as the branch you cut all the way down to the trunk.

[00:45:05]>> Sensitive.

[00:45:06]>> I still remember when we first back in the 70s before I knew anything about pruning, we would get these trees, peach trees in with all these branches on them. And uh those days we're doing the real close cutting. So we cut off three or four of the branches, killed the tree because we were doing close cutting. We' cut them right against the trunk to get rid of all these little branches and we were killing our trees because they had so many wounds going into the wood real close together. It was just killing them.

[00:45:46][clears throat] >> Hot harder to gra >> Well, they they don't live as long. So apple orchards can go 150 years easy because you can do a lot of pruning on apples to make them real productive and it's not hurting them that badly. Peach orchards, we do a lot of pruning on them to make better quality peaches.

[00:46:08]Um, and they said the average lifespan of a peach orchard, modern peach orchard, is 12, 13 years because we're doing so much damage to the trees when we prune them for better fruit quality that their production is going down because of all the damage.

[00:46:29]So, those are two opposite ends. Some other plants that don't seal wounds well, maples, birch trees are a notable one. So birch trees on average, you know, they're a shortlived tree. Even in nature, they said they average only about 25 years of life because and if you top a birch tree, you just killed it. So you know, if you have an arborist that comes and tops your birches, he doesn't know what he's doing.

[00:46:59]So, so maples you have to be pretty selective too because they don't heal their wounds really really well. So, you know, you can prune a small branch without too much worry because it's a small wound. But, uh, if you let a tree grow a branch grow big before you cut it off, you're doing a lot more damage on some trees than others.

[00:47:22][clears throat] Okay, let's see. I think we covered Oh, the other thing about bigger. So, the big shade tree, some of the other points to know when you're training a big shade tree, we want pretty much, especially if you want a tree like an oak with a center trunk, one center leader. You don't want branches that are going upwards because the branch going upward is going to act like a trunk. You want the branch to be outwards.

[00:48:08]So that this has more applicical do you know it's more dominant because this branch here can start acting like the main trunk. So you want to get them outwards usually a little below 30° but you don't want to be flat. You don't want a flat branch because when you have a branch going flat there's no oxen controlling the other. So they start doing this. they start sending up all these branches off the top of that one that can be another central leader. So you want branches that go up slightly and you don't want branches that are pointing too straight up.

[00:48:50]And if the side branch is too fat, close to the same size of this, cut it short, which will stunt it for a while. So this can get bigger than that. You don't want a a side branch to be as big as the main trunk.

[00:49:09]And also we don't like to see side branches with the real narrow angle like that. Uh so what happens as strong as a strong branch is when you see that bark branch ridge.

[00:49:26]So the bark is forming between here and here.

[00:49:30]And the wood's forming, too. If you have a branch that's going like this, real narrow to the tree.

[00:49:38]As these both grow bigger, there's no room in here to grow wood or bark.

[00:49:43]So this branch was only attached by a small little piece. And as this branch gets bigger and bigger and the trunk gets bigger and bigger, this branch will then just break off.

[00:49:56]Now, the forest department used to worry about trees growing together where they have two trees so close together in the ground that the trunks meet like this. They think, well, maybe they'll, but they said they've been watching those for generations and they don't fall down. So, they don't worry about that anymore. What they do worry about is if you have a tree with a huge branch and this they they're making kind of a instead of a bark branch ridge that sticks outwards, it's going inwards and especially if it does if it does this, they know this branch is going to going to break off pretty soon. So they'll cut that branch off to make this tree, you know, tree more safer in the neighborhoods.

[00:50:47]>> You can put Sorry, you can put on and change it and change >> if it's still young. But once, you know, if it's already that thick, you really can't.

[00:50:58]>> What about magnolia trees? like when the branches are like too close to the ground are they because I know you were talking some of them are really sensitive to cutting some of them aren't good without any >> don't know I don't think magnolia are sensitive but I don't know I haven't seen the research on that tree um they don't get huge so they're probably not that dangerous not like oaks or or pines or you know there a lot of trees get so big and if anything breaks off and you know uh without notice then you're in danger. I mean you know we noticed that very few growers grow eucalyptus anymore because they're just too dangerous. I mean I mean I I used to live in Missionville and there was a park by a school with eucalyptus trees with trunks this big and every winter branches would fall off those trees this thick just fall off the tree.

[00:52:01]So my god that could have killed somebody.

[00:52:04]So pretty much eucalyptus aren't aren't being planted anymore because no one can tell that they're breaking apart. Um, in my neighborhood growing up, I grew up in Irvine, every windy season, there were multiple eucalyptus, like thick. I can't even convey how thick they are. And my friend's dad, one day he was home alone and he real he's in his office and he realized he forgot his glasses in his bedroom. And he went to the bedroom to get his glasses. And while he was there, a huge tree fell and crushed that side of his house. So if he had not forgotten his glasses, he would have died.

[00:52:39][laughter] >> Yeah. I mean, all the tree deaths that have occurred in Orange County the last 20 years are eucalyptus.

[00:52:46]>> So, so we don't recommend them anymore at all. Um, they're just too dangerous.

[00:52:53][clears throat] Um, okay. I think we covered shade trees pretty good.

[00:53:05]Anybody have any particular questions about certain plants?

[00:53:10]You said each tree.

[00:53:16]>> Well, that's a complicated tree.

[00:53:23]>> Uh, I can talk about them. So, on more simple fruit trees, we'll talk about that first so you know the difference.

[00:53:33]like apples, pears, plums, apricots, uh most of those fruing trees make fruiting spurs.

[00:53:44]So on fruit trees in general, the leaves that get the most sunlight hitting them uh make the fruit. Now, when an apple tree is young or everything's headed up, you don't want it heading up. Is when they're heading upwards, the leaves that get the most sunlight are just at the very tops of each branch. So if you let all the branches go straight up and you get flowers on the ends of each branch and that's it. And those apples on the end on the tops of the trees usually sunburn and they're no good. So on apple trees in nature when they get older the branches get so long they just weigh down. But when they weigh down then the the buds on the branch on the at the base of the branch start waking up like this branch here. This section is fairly flat. So you see these little clusters of leaves.

[00:54:35]Those are on short branches. So these are be become the fruing spurs of this tree. So you got a cluster of leaves on this branch that's right now about a quarter inch long. This branch may be an eighth of an inch long. So these will be where when this branch is if it's this at this angle, then this is where apples form. They'll be under the shade of higher branches. That's your best apples. And these fruing spurs, which are just short branches, will have flower buds at the end of them that'll become apples.

[00:55:09]Uh, and those little short branches can be active for the next 10, 15 years.

[00:55:17]So, you'll still make an apple at the end of the branch, but the fruing spurs are best quality apples because they're in the shade.

[00:55:26]of the tree. So on apple trees and pear trees both they like to do this go straight up. We want them to do more of this to encourage the the spurs and the tree and not just have apples at the tips of each branch. So apples and pears um are often trained as a single trunk.

[00:55:48]Now if the tree has two trunks when you get it, you don't have to cut one of them off. You just say, "Okay, this is these two trunks are all this tree like a single trunk. Branches at at levels going sideways off of those two trunks going straight up. And those side branches where your best quality food will be. Now, if you have a plum tree, I didn't bring a plum tree in here. Plums and apricots, we don't usually train the branches flat, although they often do that on their own. We train to be a fan.

[00:56:23]So plum trees and apricot trees, this kind of let them do this and they can develop flower buds wherever there's leaves attached. But what they do as they get older and they start making a lot of little short branches at the base of the bigger branches.

[00:56:45]So these are their fruing spurs and that's when your best fruit will be in this area rather than the tips of the tree. Yes.

[00:56:54]>> I'm sorry to go a tiny bit back but in both instances like with the apple tree you're saying you want to train them down. How do you do that?

[00:57:04]>> Tie them to a steak or put weights on them. Tying them to a steak is a little safer than putting weights on them because then they >> But yeah, tying them down There we go.

[00:57:18]>> Yeah. When they're young, they're real flexible. Now, if you got a branch that's too stiff, just cut a short, make it start over. Then the new growth is very flexible.

[00:57:27]We've seen, you know, where people are missing a branch on one side, they'll [snorts] just take this branch and move to the other side of the tree because they're real flexible. And you want, you know, you want the branch, so you want tears of branches on the apple tree about a foot between and say you want another tier here. So you trim this one off the top three or four buds to open up. And then you choose one to go straight up and all the rest to go sideways again. So you just kind of tear it as it grows.

[00:57:58]You know, if you're in Minnesota, every year you can make one tear here. In one year you can make three or four tears because our growing season's four times as long as it is in Minnesota. So >> who did you say that one was? The light colored leaf.

[00:58:11]>> I didn't. [snorts] This is a cinnamon tree.

[00:58:13]>> Cinnamon.

[00:58:15]>> Yeah. I brought in cuz you can see some of the bark branch ridges on it, but uh I found a a bigger piece this morning to do that with.

[00:58:28]Okay. So, those do it that way. Now, the problem we have with peach trees is that they don't make fruing spurs.

[00:58:37]So the branch that grows this year can every at the base of each leaf on this branch, they can make flowers that fruit next year, but then next year they'll grow branches off of those branches that will then make fruit.

[00:58:56]And the original branch that has fruit on it will never fruit again.

[00:59:00]So if you don't So if you let the tree grow every year, it's got to grow bigger to make fruit. It can't stay the same size because it didn't have the little short branches. It's got these real long branches. They found out that the best quality peaches are in branch that grew between that naturally grew between one and two foot long.

[00:59:23]So here's a branch that's about 18 in. So this if we leave this branch here next year you'll get some really good peaches on this branch. But then the year after that it's going to grow another 18 in. Your trees going to have to get bigger every year. So what they do what we have to do with peaches is cut off the branches that fruit it.

[00:59:43]>> What do they use to judge qu?

[00:59:47]>> Size, taste.

[00:59:50]Size and taste. So this was done on the east coast. I think it was University of Pennsylvania, might have been Ohio.

[01:00:04]>> And you only want to get say 8 foot. You don't want to be using ladders to get back to the thought. How would you top that? How would you prune that so that it doesn't get any taller without damaging your future?

[01:00:21]And where would >> well hopefully you have branches all the way down to waist height at least or even lower. Those are going to be where your fruits form. You don't want anything fruiting higher than you can reach, >> right?

[01:00:32]>> So most even commercial orchards now, they rarely plan on them getting higher than 8 foot because no one wants their workers to climb ladders. It's too dangerous, right?

[01:00:42]>> So 8 foot high. Now, okay, just so you know, the optimum size for a fruit tree is supposed to be about 8t tall and 5 foot wide. Now, it's hard to do that with certain fruit trees, but what they what the research found out is that 5 foot wide is the widest the tree can be.

[01:01:06]So, that's productive all the way to the trunk.

[01:01:10]>> So, the light can penetrate 2 and 1/2t of foliage.

[01:01:15]If you have a 10 foot wide tree, you've got a five foot space in the middle of the tree that doesn't do any production because it's too dark in there.

[01:01:23]So, they found if they keep their trees only five foot wide now, you know, that's almost unrealistic. It's probably going to be more like six or seven foot across. It's just hard to keep them at 5 foot. But at 5 foot, that's your most productive orchard. You need to plant more trees because you can probably foot fit six or seven trees in the space of what they used to do, which is one 15 foot by 15t tree, which is, you know, that's a lot of territory. And now if you only have trees that are 5 foot wide, you space 5 foot wide trees 7 foot apart. So you can probably put three or four trees in a space before you had one 15t tree. Now, for an orchard, you know, that's just a matter of buying more trees to start with. For a homeowner, that's also helpful because when I first started growing trees back in the 1980s, we were growing 15 foot wide trees. So, I had a plum tree that made a crop and a plum tree crop is done in three weeks. That's like 400 plums. What do you do with 400 fruit in three weeks?

[01:02:32]>> I can eat maybe one or two a day. It's like it's like, okay, if you have a tree that's 5 foot wide, that's more like 50 to 120 fruit and you have three weeks to eat it. You can eat a lot more of that crop than you can with a 15 by 15 foot tree. Uh so it's actually advantageous for homeowner if they keep that tree smaller. Now, some trees are okay being 15 by 15 because the fruit has great hang time like apples, avocados, and citrus. Um, a lot of those trees of fruit like apples will hang at least three months. Citrus 5 months, avocados usually around 3 to five months also. They'll hang on the tree ripe. So, you can eat more of those fruits. Um, yeah, [laughter] the critters don't get them.

[01:03:28]But on a peach or most stone fruits, you got three weeks to pick them. Uh, and if you can't eat it, you give it away.

[01:03:37]>> Yes.

[01:03:38]>> On a 5' 5 or two.

[01:03:41]>> Yep.

[01:03:42]>> And then where do they put their where do they put their flowers?

[01:03:49]>> Well, in an avocado, wherever a branch is in got good sunlight on it, it can flower the next year. Citrus, same way.

[01:03:56]Any branch that's got leaves on it can flower the next year. Um, yeah, they don't make quote spurs. It's growth that comes off of areas that have leaves since they're evergreen trees.

[01:04:09]Um, like citrus, you just shear them to shape them. And if you if the branch you left still has leaves on it, you can still get fruit there. Whereas, if you cut it to a bare branch, it's not going to fruit there for that year.

[01:04:24]um avocado is kind of the same thing although we don't you know we do most of the pruning so the timing is going to be a big factor too. So most fruit trees that we operate with form their fruing wood in the fall. So most fruit trees grow like crazy spring and summer and then they stop in the fall and at that point whatever leaves they've got on them are storing energy to make the flower buds for next year. So in the summertime, you can hack at it or you can cut the entire top off and it'll regrow branches in the summer that then in the fall can make flowers and fruit for the next year. So you we're lucky here because we got such a long growing season. So we can actually cut off any branch on the piece that fruited by summer. You can cut that whole thing off and let it regrow and it'll fruit the next year. I've done that. Whereas if you're in Minnesota, no, you you cut the branch back and let it regrow the next year.

[01:05:28]So on so a lot of the books on a peach tree, you say have you now peaches, we usually let them make more than one trunk.

[01:05:41]In Minnesota or Canada, they can get by with one trunk because their growing season's so short, the branches don't grow too vigorously. here. If you only have one trunk on a peach tree, a lot of times the branches are too vigorous.

[01:05:53]They'll grow three or four foot long.

[01:05:56]They won't fruit well. Too much energy.

[01:05:59]So, a lot of orchards in California will allow their trees to grow a second trunk or a third trunk or even four trunks to lower the energy of each trunk so the branches don't grow so long. So, like this one's got a second already a second trunk on it. And you might even let a third trunk grow just to lower the energy on each trunk so the branches that grow aren't so long.

[01:06:24]So, peaches and nectarines both. You might let them grow more than more than one trunk. Um um a friend of mine who had who had an orchard in Irvine did four trunks on their tree. They let them have four upright branches and then everything else is trained horizontally.

[01:06:49]So on a peach tree, ideally in the winter, you want your branches spaced about a foot apart going up and down the tree. And you can you can divide your tree each trunk into say four directions.

[01:07:04]>> So branch this way, this way out and back.

[01:07:08]or more if you wanted to. About a foot between each branch and ideally two foot between I mean one foot between each branch. The tree is was making a lot more branches and ideally you'd cut them off or you'd cut them short. So you cut the branches you don't want short but not off.

[01:07:35]And then the following year, you'd cut these short and these that grew back this year now going to be fruiting the next year. So you're alternating branches. Now again, [clears throat] we have a long season. You can actually cut all your branches short in the summer, let them regrow in the summer and buy after the fruit's off and they'll still have enough time to make fruit next year. I've done that. But for most orchards, they cut this branch short, leave this branch to fruit. The next year they cut this branch short. This one is left to fruit. They alternate branches up and down the trunk of the tree to make your best quality peaches.

[01:08:16]>> Where do you cut the top to stop?

[01:08:19]>> Anywhere you want.

[01:08:20]>> Anywhere.

[01:08:22]Okay.

[01:08:25]>> Now Dave Wilson Nursery who grows, you know, they're the biggest supplier of orchard trees in the US.

[01:08:33]um they came up with a simpler methods which probably aren't quite as good but for most homeowners they wanted to make it simple. So they say you take any fruit tree in your yard [snorts] and just cut it wherever to the height you want to fruit the next year at the end of summer, beginning of summer and end of summer. So, usually I would come I tried the Dave Wilson method for years. So, you cut I would cut it July 4th, the day I wasn't working. Then I cut it Labor Day, a day I had off, too. This trimmed all my trees to a shape I wanted to fruit at, like a 5-ft shape without any regard to branching or anything.

[01:09:21]And the trees would then fruit in this shape.

[01:09:26]And it was fine. I mean, I was getting fruit, not real big fruit, not you know, not perfect fruit, but I was still getting plent. The trees were small. So, that's their method. Just cut any of their fruit trees down to the height you want during the summertime.

[01:09:41]Um, and if there's still leaves on the tree, that tree is going to fruit the next year.

[01:09:48]It's not the best way to prune, but it gets the job done. If you leave leaves on your tree and you cut it to just a moundy shape, it'll still fruit the next year. It's not as good as the detail work that we like to do for best quality fruit, but it's still, you know, that that easy way of doing it cut in the summer for for uh size control.

[01:10:16]Um, it's so commercial. They use machine like a haircut. They just cut straight, right?

[01:10:24]>> You see? Like a >> like a brick. I hope like a brick.

[01:10:29]>> Yeah.

[01:10:31]>> Well, pomegranates are kind of like citrus. They got so many branches on them. If you leave branches, don't cut them all off to the trunk, they'll still fruit the next year. So, um, there's only one fruit tree we know of that fruits on new wood. So most fruit trees either fruit on well fruit on last year's growth or fruit off of last year's growth like a mulberry tree like this.

[01:11:01]This is this year's growth. Any branch that grows off of this branch next year potentially can fruit.

[01:11:08]If you cut it too low to a branch that's two or three years old, then it won't fruit for one year. Now, mulberries and figs sometimes do fruit off of on new growth. I can't say that for certain, but they fruit better if you off of one-year-old growth than they do off of second or third year wood or off of a stump. Yes.

[01:11:30]>> Um, a lot of the new fruit on my very young fig.

[01:11:35]Um, it falls off and I'm trying to decide if it's just the tree dropping it or if it's the big fly.

[01:11:43]>> Big fly.

[01:11:43]>> It's definitely big. Okay. Figs don't usually drop off unless they've been attacked by the fake fly.

[01:11:51]>> I saw some people that just the leaves can fruit lot time a year.

[01:11:57]>> Yes.

[01:11:58]>> That what what happen?

[01:12:00]>> Well, on a mature tree. Now, this particular one, if you strip the leaves off, it won't fruit again. It won't fruit at all this year. But on some mulberries that are naturally small, if you strip the leaves off the branch, it wants to grow new leaves. But every bit of new growth that comes out has flower buds on it before the leaves come out.

[01:12:22]So if you strip the leaves off, you make another round of blooms, another round of fruit. Now Pakistan mulberries can do that too, but they've got to get real.

[01:12:29]So there's some mulberries that have to get real like Pakistan trunks got to be this big and the branch is real fat before you can do that. before you can induce that tree to to relum all year long because I've done it. So I had a a Pakistan mulbury that was four years old. Trunk was already this big. They grow branches 10 foot long in five months. Cut that thing all the way almost back to the trunk and it would grow new branches that had fruit or just strip the leaves off the branch and along that branch would make new branches that had fruit on them. So I can make that thing fruit constantly just about the entire year once it was of mature size. Now some types of mulberries that are a lot smaller trees like Pakistan wants to be a 30-foot tree. So it's got to have some size before it can do that. But some other mulberries like worlds best or uh Maui or some of the dwarf ones. Yeah. From the very start you can strip the leaves off and they'll flower again and make fruit again. And you keep >> you prune it every month. You can.

[01:13:40]>> So, a good friend of mine has had a Pakistan mulberry for almost 20 years. He keeps it under 10 feet. He prunes it every month. And he's always got fruit on the tree practically all year.

[01:13:55]>> Wow. Is that what that one is?

[01:13:57]>> Right. That's a >> really sweet.

[01:14:00]>> They're they're about a little thinner in my finger and about five inches long.

[01:14:05]>> Are they really?

[01:14:06]>> They're really sweet, but they're not that strongly flavored. They're a little bit on the bland side, but if you like bland sweet fruit, they're really good.

[01:14:14]>> What's this?

[01:14:16]>> That's a different talk. [laughter] >> Well, well, the black the black Persians are considered the best tasting of all mulberries. And I've never eaten one.

[01:14:28]They're they're a little slower to produce. So, we keep some. So, I got my name on one now. I'm going to determine to keep it long enough until it fruits.

[01:14:36]>> Yeah.

[01:14:38]>> Okay. So, peace trees, nectarine trees, very complicated. Kills them early. So, you know, 10 years down the road, they're already declining.

[01:14:49]Um, now on covered most of the fruit trees. I think we talked about most of them. Um, so if you have a a hedge or a screen, these are wonderful hedge and screen plants.

[01:15:16]You see how full they are? That's one reason we use them.

[01:15:21]In order to keep all the foliage on them, you got to make sure that the leaves always get hit by the sun. Cuz if if the top gets too wide and the bottom's too shady, then all those branches to the bottom will go bare. I' I've had some customers come in and they show me their Italian cyprress that have no leaves for the first seven foot and then the top.

[01:15:46]and they wanted to make them see if how they can make them leaf out again. Well, if they look like that already and then they have foliage up here and they want foliage down here, they're going to have to cut those all the way down to where they want the foliage to start. So, I told them, you know, they had a block wall this high. So, they wanted to get more foliage here so they can hide the, you know, hide themselves again. So, I told them, you have to cut it down to there and then they'll re start regrowing right from here.

[01:16:16]Now that'll that potentially can make these branches really weak.

[01:16:21]So then you might want to keep topping them so they don't get too long on you.

[01:16:25]But that's the only way you can fill that area back in because the hormones coming down from the top of tree will keep anything from sprouting on this trunk. You cut the top off and then the buds are free to sprout.

[01:16:40]So to keep it full, you want to make sure you bevel your hedge or screen.

[01:16:45]Now, if this if the hedge or screen is facing south, the sun will get to the bottom. You don't have to worry about that as much, but it's facing any other direction, you want to make sure the top of this this hedge is narrower than the bottom. So, the sunlight gets all the way down to the bottom foliage. So, in England, you know, they like at the at the castles and the uh the royal places, they have these forms they use for their hedges.

[01:17:15]So the people trimming the hedges have to use this form to make sure they get it right.

[01:17:23]So this form that has beveled sides on it, they go down that hedge and trim it exactly that form. Now the problem with that is that if you cut it to the same spot every time, what you end up doing is getting a knot of branches where you're cutting it. If you cut the same time, same spot every time, you eventually get a knot of just woody branches. So every 10 years or so, you got to go in farther to get rid of those knots of wood forming where you cut it and let it regrow.

[01:17:55]Sometimes when a hedge gets real old, it gets really ugly and then we just cut it to we cut it to a stump. Just cut it all the way down to a stub and let it regrow.

[01:18:08]I've done that once at my house. Uh I had a hedge that was about this tall, but the bottom was just getting too woody. So, we cut it down to about 8 in and it filled right back in again.

[01:18:20]So, a lot of plants you can do that with. Just cut them down once. You don't cut it down constantly. You're causing a lot of energy loss every time you cut them down. But if you just do it once in a while, you can make it really look good again from the base going up.

[01:18:34]>> Yeah. like rosemary and lavender. They they will die if you cut them down.

[01:18:42]I've done lavender several times. Most of the time it comes back. Sometimes it doesn't. [laughter] >> Why? It's just >> I don't know. I don't know. I mean, at my current house, we had a tree company trim a big tree and branches fell over the lavender plant. So, they just cut them down to the dirt thinking that I wouldn't want broken lavender. But they all grew back from dirt. They grew back from their underground. Whatever was underground grew back. And I have a beautiful lavender hedge now where they had removed the old they thought they had removed it just to get rid of it because it was so squashed by all the big branches. But it grew back nicely.

[01:19:18]>> Yeah. Yeah. Really happy.

[01:19:19]>> And some salvas that were hit by the tree too. So they cut them totally out and they came back also. I was amazed.

[01:19:27]But I've I've done that to lavender sometimes and they didn't come back. So, um, it dep I don't know what the difference is on that. If you leave too much dead wood there, maybe it's it can cause the rest of it to die. I don't know. I'm not certain on that one. Um, another way I was going, but I totally forgot.

[01:19:55]Any other questions today?

[01:20:02]Okay. All right. Thank you.