On a fine sunny fall day, a group of staff from the Fulton-El Camino Recreation and Park district, local community members, and one of our staff arborists gathered at Howe Community Park to learn more about pruning young shade trees. It was a huge success!

After an indoor classroom portion, we grabbed our pruners, loppers, and saws and headed out into the park to practice what we learned on real trees. I was so impressed with the group’s excitement about our subject and eagerness to start trimming and help these young trees thrive.

Simple pruning cuts made annually from the first winter to about 7 years after planting make an amazing difference in setting a tree up to be strong, healthy, and beautiful when mature. Together we pruned 5 trees, all the while discussing the merits of removing or reducing this branch or that branch, and the right place to make a good cut.

A young and energetic Frontier elm was the most challenging – and therefore fun – tree of the morning. With multiple main trunks, and very vigorous low, side branching, this tree provided lots of opportunity for making pruning decisions. The toughest lesson: there is often no single right answer of what to cut and what to keep, but many potential paths to get similar results on one tree and it comes down to choosing your favorite.

I am so proud of the trees and how great they look and how much easier they will be for the park staff to maintain in the future, and even prouder of all the learning that took place!

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the recent pruning workshop to make this such a successful day. More pruning classes are coming up this season, and we would love to see you there.

This was not the first time we have worked together with Howe Park staff — two years ago the entire staff of the Tree Foundation got together at Howe Park to volunteer our time and help make a difference for the trees! We spent a full morning weeding around trees, spreading mulch around them, pruning the young trees for structure and clearance, and so much more. I’m grateful for our long term partnership with the wonderful staff at Fulton–El Camino!