My uncle's pruning advice about 'ugly knots' backfired hard

Last month my uncle swore that cutting every crossing branch on my maple would make it healthier, so I spent a weekend stripping out about 15 small limbs near the crotch. Three days later the whole top half started drooping and a local arborist said I'd removed too much live wood at once, leaving the tree stressed and unbalanced. Has anyone else gotten well-meaning but aggressive pruning tips from family that ended up costing you more in cleanup?

2 comments

2 Comments

victor7791mo ago

Hell yeah, I'm gonna play the other side here. Your uncle gave you solid advice, you just executed it like a butcher. Fifteen limbs in one weekend isnt pruning, thats a hatchet job. Trees need time to recover, that stress is on you for going overboard, not on his method.

mark4361mo ago

Getting fifteen limbs cut in two days is way too much, no matter what the original advice said. Trees get shocked when you take off that much at once, and they will push out a ton of weak sprouts to recover. Your uncle probably meant pick the worst offenders over a few seasons, not strip the whole canopy. So yeah, the stress is on you for missing the spirit of the advice, not the method itself.