I finally noticed the difference after pruning my neighbor's oak on a 90 degree day

We had that stretch of heat in Austin back in August, and I was out helping my neighbor thin out this live oak that was casting too much shade on her veggie bed. I took off maybe 20 percent of the interior suckers and some low hanging limbs, nothing crazy. Two weeks later I walked by and that same tree just looked lighter, like it could breathe. The leaves were a deeper green and the branches seemed to hold themselves up higher. It hit me that I've been doing this work for over a decade and I never actually paid attention to the before and after on a tree I didn't own. Makes me wonder how many subtle changes I've missed on jobs where I show up, cut, and leave without coming back to check. Has anyone else gone back to a previous job site just to see how the tree settled after a few weeks?

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lisa97610d ago

The one thing I notice nobody's mentioned is how pruning changes the tree's shadow patterns. I went back to a job in Round Rock three weeks after thinning a pecan, and the shadow on the lawn was totally different, more dappled than solid. For the neighbor's veggie bed, that's probably the actual win, not just the tree looking lighter. The extra sunlight reaching her tomatoes is what matters, and you can only see that by standing where the plants are at noon. We get so focused on the tree itself we forget the tree is just a filter for everything around it. Next time you're back, check the ground, not the canopy.