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Appreciation post: the retired climber in Tulsa who told me to stop spiking my prunes so high
Was up in a 40 foot ornamental plum off Riverside Drive in Tulsa and kept spiking up past the crotch to save time on the climb. Old guy watching from his porch said, "Son, you're buying yourself six feet and selling that tree's whole future." Sure enough, two seasons later that limb had rot all down the spike holes and I had to take the whole scaffold off. Now I gaff out at the first solid crotch and use a throw line for anything above it, even if it adds twenty minutes. Anybody else here learned a pruning lesson the hard way from a stranger watching from the sidewalk?
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charlies3711d ago
Learned the same thing about oak wilt down here in Texas, but here's the part nobody talks about: it ain't just the spike holes. Every wound you put in a tree is a bill the tree pays later, and the interest rate depends on the season. Spiking in spring when sap is running is way worse than dormant season because that's when the beetles and fungus are actually moving. The old guy on the porch probably knew that too. What gets me is how we all learn this stuff from some random person watching us work, not from any class or certification. The trees been telling us the whole time, we just don't listen till somebody says it out loud.
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