Growing New Trees Right
Forum Archives
cjmiller
Location: Oregon, Willamette Valley
Posted: Mar-21-2005 at 1:15pm
3 years ago I was given some linden tree sprouts--12 inches or less. I potted them into gallon pots kept them growing in the pots and last year put them into their permanent locations. They are doing well--4 to 5 ft tall. My question is about limbing them up. They each have limbs growing about 12 inches from the ground. Are they old enough to cut off the bottom limbs yet? when should one do this? I want to be able to walk under them--ie for mowing etc, as they grow up. I know how to prune fruit trees (we have 17 of them), but I dont know much about growing big ornamental trees. How far apart at this stage do you want the limbs? Any words of warning or instructions would be appreciated!
Carol
mdvaden
Location: Oregon, Western
Posted: Mar-21-2005 at 5:38pm
In one of the stickies above (I think) I probably indicated that about 20% is the maximum volume of canopy or leaf volume to remove in a year.
Now, with a small tree, the more limbs you leave on it, the greater the girth gain of the trunk should be.
On my young trees, I like to leave the lower limbs longer if they don't get in the way. Once they get in the way, maybe then remove a few. If the tree looks okay, maybe you can even shorten a few for a year then remove them later.
Those are fairly nice trees. I see them get aphids periodically, but usually not anything really bad. If you see sooty mold on the ground below, or dripping spots, that's aphids. But don't get alarmed over minor populations.
M.D. Vaden
Gardening for the Homebrewer: Grow and Process Plants for Making Beer, Wine, Gruit, Cider, Perry, and More
By co-authors Debbie Teashon (Rainy Side Gardeners) and Wendy Tweton