If you or a former occupant of your home planted a tree along the street.

Structural pruning in the landscape has two primary goals: to develop and maintain a single dominant trunk with smaller branches distributed horizontally and vertically around it; and to reduce the likelihood of tree failure caused by defects in structure and poor.

Structural training centers around developing a dominant trunk with subordinate side branches and secondary limbs. It requires annual pruning over a period of years, rather than an occasional one-time pruning. For additional details on structural training, refer to CMG GardenNotes #, Structural Training of Young Shade Trees.

In the structural pruning of decurrent trees, an overall intent is to guide development of the branching structure, creating scaffold branches and eliminating secondary trunks. The intent is to create strong branch unions with a branch collar.

For the branch collar to develop, the branch must be less than one-half (less than one-third preferable) the size of the adjacent trunk.

Without the branch collar. Shade trees should never be topped. The regrowth of a topped tree is structurally unsound.

Topping required by utility right-of-way pruning is starkly obvious and sets an unfortunate community standard followed by others. Instead of topping, use cleaning, thinning and/or proper crown reducing. [Figure 13]. Structural pruning of young, developing trees provides a desirable and stable form at maturity and is one of the best investments that consumers can make in their landscape. In nature, trees tend to develop a sound structure in response to competition. They grow in close proximity to other trees and the shade created by the developing forest canopyFile Size: 1MB.

Structural pruning is a type of pruning typically performed on young to middle-aged shade and ornamental trees. The objective is to create a strong and healthy structure so that trees are sturdier under wind and other loads, and less prone to failures, and. by pruning. Move the tree’s center of gravity to a point more central over the trunk by cutting back the leader and laterals on the downwind side (or direction of lean) to more upright branches.

Caution: When pruning diseased trees, dip your shears in household bleach before storing or moving to the next tree. Structural pruning on shade trees that occurs regularly when the tree is less than about 20 inches trunk diameter establishes strong form early.

It is normally performed every few years to gradually encourage more growth in the selected leader.