How to Prune a Large Tree | This Old House

we're not going to just snip the ends of these branches hanging over the fence here that'll just promote the growth in the direction that we don't want it to that'll just be a temporary fix what we're going to do is going to cut some major branches I'm going to start right over here okay by making an undercut here around here yep okay Carl what you want to do here now is make the second cut right here just dope beyond that one we don't just make one cut in close to the trunk because the weight of the branch will tear down on the trunk this three cut process one undercut and one over cut makes it so the branch snaps off without tearing then the third cut occurs right in here close to the trunk not cutting the branch collar to promote proper healing now bring that pulsar in okay now we've got some dead branches up here on the main trunk that we can't reach with a handsaw so we use this pole saw put the saw up on this branch here now weave the collar leave that collar intact rake there's good go ahead and cut it okay now turn around and let's get this other dead one at a different angle good now this is one of the things we look for when we're pruning a tree we have two branches growing on top of each other in fact this one is rubbing against the lower one it's damaged the cambium Orbach and you can see where it's damaged all the way down here so one of these two branches has to go I'll take the bigger one we've done all the trimming we could do safely from the ground the rest will have to be climbed so we brought professional tree climber here Andy Murray what Andy's gonna do is gonna set his rope up on the top of the tree so he can hang from the rope go out on the ends of the branches and prune up piece by piece now the nanny's in a good position I can make a cut of good control over it and throw it into the neighbor's yard over the fence he just continuing along making the cuts like small pieces so we can get good control on them not damage the fence Andy's tied a rope into the top of this branch and we're actually supporting the weight of it down here so that Matt can make one cut right through the limb what I like to do is get the canopy above head height so you can walk right under the tree so to do this I'm using this snap cut Poona now these are blades just like you would have on a hand pruner except with this pole it allows us to go up and get into areas where we can cut back now this one's hanging down I'm going to go right into this intersection and cut it off this is the sign of a proper pruning job tree still looks very natural the overall appearance is the same and a huge volume of material has been removed from the site

Channel: This Old House

Views: 302,005

Rating: 4.806025 out of 5

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Pruning Shears, pruning, Tree, Big, Old, Garden, Do It Yourself, Landscaping, Landscape, Arborist, Willow, roger cook, matt foti, landscaping ideas, landscaping for beginners, how to landscape around house, landscaping how to guide

Id: r40vojSmaMI

Length: 3min 32sec (212 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 30 2014