Home > Pruning shade trees > Practice pruning > Poor pruning
Poor pruning
This tree was just pruned by university crews. The canopy was lifted to enhance clearance under the canopy. What should have been done is a combination of lifting (also called raising) and subordination of codominant stems to encourage development of one dominant trunk. The pruning you see above is very common and it encourages development of weak codominant stems. Raising in this fashion forces both main stems to elongate. The stem on the left should have been reduced in length so the stem on the right side could dominate the structure. The next photo shows a close-up of the weak branch union.
