Lawn Care Business Help

www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com Today we are talking about how to properly prune a limb off a tree. In today’s example, we have a branch that has been damaged. The bark is peeling away from the subwood. The entire limb is dead and needs to be pruned off to maintain the health of the tree. This limb is joined at a collared union. The bark of the tree poofs out as the limb come out of the tree. The poofed out part is the collar. All cuts at a collared union should be on the branch side of the collar. You should never cut into the collar of a tree. Cutting into a collar can do severe damage to the tree. If this branch were smaller, we could use a pair of anvil loppers to prune away the branch. Since it is so large, our anvils will not produce a correct cut. For this branch we are going to use a bow saw. A pruning saw will work too. The proper method of cutting a branch with a saw is to use the three-cut method of pruning. If you just use the saw and cut it at the collar, the weight of the branch will pull down and you risk tearing the collar damaging the tree. We are going to use the three-cut method. The first cut is made on the underside of the branch about 5 inches away from the collar. Cut the branch about 1 way through. The second cut is made about 2 inches further away from the collar than the underside cut. As you can see in the video, while making the top cut the branch fell downward before the cut was complete. This action tore the underside of the branch to the …