Pruning: Living Stumps Removes the Hazard branches and preserves what remains

Have you ever seen the giant old trees in story books? You know the
ones with the big gnarled trunks and a tiny tree canopy overhead?

Well that same effect can be created with trees that are too old and
too damaged than what most tree pruners will want to save…

Sometimes this process is seen as an eyesore and the trees are removed
entirely after five or six years. An example of this are the first two
trees…

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But sometimes as in the case of the 170 year old Walnut tree below,
the sprout branches are regularly pruned and an important landmark in
Downtown Santa Cruz is still alive and well…

Back in 1994 when myself and others convinced the city to practice
this style of pruning the city’s arborist was furious. He promised us
that the tree would die in a few years and it would never produce
walnuts again…

Yet here we are 15 years later and this tree is still alive and still
producing Walnuts!

This technique tends to work better with slower growing trees in drier
climates, such as this oak tree that grow in the San Francisco Bay
Area…