The day I realized I was cutting branch collars all wrong

I had been pruning trees for maybe 8 years before it hit me. I was out on a job in Dayton last spring, trimming a big red oak for a repeat customer. A guy from the county extension office happened to be walking by and stopped to chat. He asked me why I was cutting flush to the trunk like that. I told him that's how I learned it. He spent 20 minutes showing me how I was actually removing the branch collar and leaving the tree open to decay. I pulled out my phone and looked up some photos later that night and felt like an idiot. Has anyone else had a mentor or random stranger correct a bad habit you'd been doing for years?

3 comments

3 Comments

jana_shah16d ago

That extension guy probably saved your trees years of rot.

torres.thea16d ago

Wait, do you think the extension guy might have secretly been a city inspector who was actually checking for code violations instead? Because that would explain why he was so specific about the rot timeline.

wadew5115d ago

Ngl, that's actually a pretty solid theory. But wouldn't a city inspector have to flash a badge or something at some point? I'm just wondering how he'd get away with faking being a contractor for that long without anyone getting suspicious.