The maple I pruned 4 years ago looks like a different tree now

Back in 2020 I took on a neglected silver maple on a property in Columbus. It had crossing branches, included bark, and a massive dead limb over the driveway. I spent two full days thinning it out and taking out about 30% of the crown. Yesterday I drove past that house and almost didn't recognize it. The whole canopy lifted up and the tree looks balanced and healthy now. The key difference was removing those weight-bearing codominant stems early before they split in a storm. Has anyone else seen a big turnaround on a tree you worked on years back?

2 comments

2 Comments

haydenburns3d ago

My buddy Mark did this to a red oak at his parents' place back in 2017. He took out this one giant limb that was rubbing against the house and crossed right over the main trunk. The tree looked pretty lopsided for almost two years, like it was wearing a bad haircut. But this past summer I was over there and the crown had filled in perfectly, all the new growth pointing upward instead of sideways. He said the best part was that the acorn mess on the roof basically stopped.

cora_martinez3d ago

A friend of mine had a similar experience with a willow oak at her church in Dayton. @haydenburns is right about that lopsided phase, because hers looked terrible for a good three years after the initial prune. She had a certified arborist take out three major limbs that were growing inward and crossing each other, and the whole middle of the tree was just empty space after that. But last spring I saw it in full leaf and the canopy had rounded out perfectly, with all the new growth going outward rather than up and tangling. It took patience but the tree really did fill back in better than before.