March 25 Valley Life Column

March 25 Valley Life Column in AG Weekly

Spring's the perfect time to limb up trees

The first time I heard the term, limbing up, I was in a garden center looking at spring bulbs. Two people were discussing trees. As they spoke, I envisioned children climbing a tree, using one limb after another until they got to the top. It made perfect sense to me.

Until I read an article about spring yard work. Besides cleaning out deadwood and planting spring shrubs, the article mentioned limbing up trees in areas that had grown too shady. OK, I thought. Obviously limbing up a tree had nothing to do with climbing.

To increase my tree knowledge, I went to the Internet. It didn't take long to find several sites dealing with trees. One in particular listed common terms used in pruning. There was selective pruning, indiscriminate pruning, and heading back, not to mention tip pruning, topping, snapping and pinching. Most of the terms I was familiar with, but then I stumbled across another term that had me puzzled. The site didn't mention limbing up, but it did say to skirt trees whose limbs dangled too low to the ground.

Huh? I always thought skirting a tree was like skirting a trailer. You put those plastic guards around the trunks to protect them from mowers or trimmers. Or you put a skirt around your Christmas tree to make it look pretty.

But no, skirting a tree or limbing up a tree in "prunese" means to remove the limbs from the bottom of the tree, something I've been doing for years. The site also told me how to window my trees, which means to prune away major limbs and branch whorls that obscure a view, and about interlimbing, which means to remove entire whorls or tree branches throughout the tree, allowing more light and wind to pass through. Cool.

As soon as I finish limbing up my trees, I'm off to the garden center. This time I'll be looking at seed potatoes. As I check out the reds and the goldens, I'll keep my ears open. Who knows what else I'm likely to learn.