Small trees & shrubs Short & sweet
Just because they are small doesn’t mean they deserve less of the attention and care we give larger specimens.
Caring for the little guys
We can support your garden goals with:
Fruit Tree Pruning
By reducing and thinning out last year’s growth, fruit tree pruning encourages structure and light penetration. The tree’s energy is sent to the remaining canopy and the end result is larger, nicely spaced fruit.
Young Tree Training
The goal of young tree training is to promote good structure, and anticipate future form and function. Train and prune early to avoid cutting large branches later.
Ornamental Shrubs
Ornamental shrubs have a way of getting too big for the space they are in, growing into each other and covering your walkways. We can help with rejuvenation and containment pruning to keep your shrubs both beautiful and manageable.
Mindful pruning practice
Our pruning practices are mindful of the future structure of the tree and minimize the excessive sprouting that is typical of improper pruning techniques.
The result?
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less frequent ongoing maintenance
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less cost to you
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trees that are happier, healthier & more natural looking—in other words, beautiful trees!
Small trees & shrubs
require their own specialized care and pruning strategies.
We're so glad that you're concerned about how your trees and shrubs will be pruned because their long term health is important.
As ISA certified arborists, we specialize in pruning trees and shrubs of all sizes and we follow the ISA standard of care.
We offer a variety of pruning strategies including crown cleaning, thinning, restoration, clearance pruning, pruning for fruit or structure.
We also offer skilled pruning of fruit trees every spring, and hedging every fall. Whatever the situation, our goal at Grow Tree Care is to maintain a healthy balance of what is good for the tree and meeting your objectives.
You wouldn’t expect to have to start pruning a nursery tree right away, but this is sometimes the case. In nature, a young tree doesn’t look anything like a mature tree, but as consumers, we want to buy baby trees that look like adult trees. In order to make us happy, nurseries get busy making pruning cuts that make the tree look the way we expect it should. Sadly, now that our cute little nursery tree’s natural structure and growth pattern have been disrupted, it won’t grow into the beautiful mature tree that you envisioned had it been left alone.
This is a good illustration of the fact that once we begin to tamper with the natural form of a tree, we often end up having to do more in the future, so the general rule of “the less interference, the better” applies.
It is important to have nursery trees pruned when they are young (1-2 years after planting and again in 2-3 years) to encourage a natural form so that they will need less corrective pruning as they mature.
For starters, reducing the height and opening up the tree’s structure can make it easier to reach fruit, but in addition, reducing and thinning out the previous year’s growth and spur networks encourages light penetration so the tree’s energy is sent to the remaining structure, resulting in larger, nicely spaced fruit. Finally, increasing air flow and light also discourages pests and disease that flourish in damp shady conditions.
Here on the Wet Coast, we usually prune fruit trees in the late winter or early spring. At this time, trees are still dormant and the risk of spreading fungal disease lessens with the drier, sunnier weather. It is important to prune before buds break but after the worst of the winter weather has passed.
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