Raising the crown - comparisons

Why prune | Tree structure | Pruning cuts | Prune at planting | Structural pruning | Sub-standard pruning | Is pruning needed
Raising the crown | Thinning the crown | Reducing the crown | Pruning home page

Raising is easiest when trees are structually pruned to one dominant trunk. Creating clearance for people, vehicles and signs is accomplished by simply removing several small-diameter branches on the lower trunk (top left). Raising is also fairly easy when the tree has a dominant leader with only one low limb growing upright into the crown (top right); the large limb on the lower right should be removed. Raising becomes more difficult when there are several equal-sized stems growing from the same point on the trunk (bottom left). Raising is most difficult when three or more stems emerge from the same point and they each grow in a wide-spreading manner (bottom right). Removing them would leave large wounds and removes a huge part of the tree. Therefore, pruners often retain the three main limbs, as shown, and remove secondary branches growing from the main limbs. This leaves large branches in the way which provides poor clearance. It also leaves serious defects in trees that would grow to become large at maturity.

Raising crown home | 1 | 2

Most easy to raise - dominant trunk, small branches	Easy to raise - dominant trunk, only one upright large branch
Difficult to raise - several codominant, upright stems	Very difficult to raise - three wide-spreading limbs

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