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well we've put the garden to bed the
rainy season's here
the tomatoes have all been canned and
the corn has all been frozen and i
really appreciate the good advice you
gave
to me all of you gave you know last
spring
and i have a lot to think about this
winter while i'm preparing to put in
next year's garden
but today it's time to prune up that
willow tree
it's high and it's heavy and it's over
the house and we spend a lot of time
underneath of it
and since it was pillared last time it's
got to be pillared
again this time so the boys with cowboy
tree service are going to show up here
in just a little bit
they're going to do their hybrid craft
which is a combination of mountain
climber and gardener and lager and you
know they have a very
challenging and i think exciting job
every day and they have to pay attention
and it's going to be fun watching what
they do here
to make that tree safer and cleaner so
that next year
our backyard is a little bit scalped but
a lot less nerve-wracking
let's see how they do this
now if i remember right this weeping
willow was planted by my folks around
1983
maybe my mom just loved weeping willow
trees
she'd always wanted one so they planted
this old boy as a tiny little chute
just a little too close to the house and
a little too close to the septic tank
but the result is a big beautiful tree
that graces and threatens frankly
our property it's a love-hate
relationship if there ever was one
because it's a heavy brittle messy old
tree
and it creates a shady and soothing
backyard oasis that we just wouldn't
trade for anything in the summertime
so
i think it was about 2002 the summer of
2002
my folks heard a ruckus in the backyard
and they went out to find a 500 pound
chunk of this tree that had snapped off
without any warning at all and was lying
on the grass
right where they sat on hot summer
afternoons
so they hired a tree guy to prune it up
he climbed it
he top roped it and he simply cut off
all the main limbs
where they were about eight or ten
inches in diameter with almost no regard
to its shape
this is called polarting it's a pruning
technique and it encourages a thick
closely spaced head of branches to grow
right out of the cut-off end
nate and his sister amanda both have
pilated trees on their places
and they look nice after a couple of
years go by but the problem is
the new branches don't have much
strength
because the heartwood does not continue
uninterrupted
from the parent limb out into the new
shoots so as the new shoots get bigger
and heavier they just want to break off
again
so once pillared always pillarted
and this old boy was overdue another
downside to polarting is that those big
flat cut-off ends can start to rot
rather than sending out the new growth
so pilarting is not ideal in many ways
but it's what we have to work with
if you're a young person watching this
video and you're thinking man i would
love to do that
there are some things that you probably
should start learning right now
first and probably most important for
any job or any situation in life is
situational awareness you've got to
start practicing keeping your eyes wide
open
and thinking a lot about what could
happen
from any direction at any moment and
without any warning
because murphy's law is a real thing in
work like this
and if you don't learn to expect it
you're just not going to last long
second get a piece of light rope
keep it wherever you spend time and
start practicing knots
all kinds of knots now happily most of
the knots that arborists
use are the same ones that rock climbers
use
so they're easy to find out about make
those knots
automatic third
buy a little chainsaw and learn how to
start it run it
service it and maintain it it won't cost
you much
it's a great tool to have and it's going
to give you a big head start
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fourth start reading and watching
everything you can about trees
how they grow different species all of
that
and pay attention when you see arborists
at work
pay attention when you see that's
recently been pruned
look it over start to understand what
they did
and last wherever you're working right
now
whatever you're doing learn the habit of
getting to work 10 minutes early
and always doing a little more than your
share
thanks for watching essential craftsman
and keep up the good work
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you
