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Pollarding and
Reduction Pruning
Sometimes, due to care or growing conditions, deciduous trees must be pruned severely to restore balance to their shape or to reduce their size.
Use either of the two special pruning methods we demonstrate for pollarding or reduction pruning of fast-growing trees.
While pollarding is done annually, it’s best to spread reduction pruning over two seasons for cases of very severe pruning after years of neglect.
Pollarding
Pollarding is a popular pruning method used to encourage abundant annual foliage in a ball-like habit. It is best used for fast-growing trees such as fruitless mulberry and willow in a formal setting.
You’ll see pollarding commonly used in public parks. Some species often pollarded are London plane tree, other sycamores, fruitless prune, thornless mulberry, crape myrtle, and fig.
All these trees grow long branches in a single season. Pollarding returns them to their starting point each spring, so they remain manageable in size.
We demonstrate pollarding on a thornless mulberry, a popular landscape shade tree that produces many sprouts as long as 5 ft. (1.5 m) each season. Pollarding is a good way to keep them manageable in height and dense in form.
Autumn Reduction Pruning
Reduction pruning is used to renew older trees that were neglected for several years and no longer have attractive shapes or healthy wood.
Left to their own, many trees fill their canopy with an assortment of branches that criss-cross from one side to the other.
Others grow lopsided, with half their branches getting full sun. Their remaining branches grew gangly and sparse due to lack of sufficient light.
Another situation is windstorm damage. Loss of a major limb during a storm may require rebalancing the tree. It’s always best to reduce such trees overall at these times, rather than let them fill the void by growing new branches.
We demonstrate reduction pruning on a crape myrtle, an ornamental that blooms each year during summer on new wood. Reduction pruning also reduces cleanup from falling seed-pod clusters during autumn and winter.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Pollarding
Pollard deciduous trees in late autumn or winter when they are bare of leaves and completely dormant for greatest seasonal growth, or in spring before leaf buds form to retard excess growth.
Gather a sturdy tree ladder, chalk, tape measure, pole pruner, pruning saw, and gloves. Follow these easy steps:
How to Pollard Deciduous Trees
Three to six main branches should extend equally from the tree’s center. Mark main cuts with chalk at a point with nascent buds sprouting from these main branches.
Remove all lateral shoots on each primary branch with abundant growth buds, from the marks to the trunk.
At the marks, cut off the branches with a pruning saw, cutting upward from the underside of the branch. Make a second, downward cut to remove the limb without skinning the branch.
Remove all of the secondary branches from the tree with a long-handled pruner, cutting them flush with the trunk.
In the second and subsequent seasons, use pole pruners or a pruning saw to remove each long new-growth sprout at its junction with the main branch.
Reduction Pruning
Reduction prune in autumn after all leaves have fallen, and water faithfully the following season.
Gather long-handled pruners, plastic tape, a pole pruner, pruning saw, tree ladder, gloves, and eye-protection gear. Follow these easy steps:
How to Reduction Prune Deciduous Trees
Remove any dead, weak, or crossing branches, trimming them flush with the trunk.
Evaluate the cuts you’ll make by marking them with plastic tape. They should reduce the canopy size by 25–33 percent and be symmetrical.
With a pole pruner, remove all small foliage branches outside of the main cut markers, leaving bare branches.
Use a pruning saw to remove branches with three cuts: the first halfway through from beneath, a second halfway from above and to the outside of the first cut, and last a cut to remove the stub flush with the crotch at the trunk.
Select three to five laterals from each main branch for retention, then remove the remainder.
Spray the pruned tree with horticultural oil to eliminate boring pests and prevent fungal infections until the cuts heal.