Limbing up a spruce - Ask Extension
Can you give me some good information regarding limbing up a spruce tree. I live in Denver. My neighbor keeps bugging me to limb up our tree becau...
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Limbing up a spruce #193937
Asked June 24, 2014, 3:20 PM EDT
Can you give me some good information regarding limbing up a spruce tree. I live in Denver. My neighbor keeps bugging me to limb up our tree because he thinks his 1' of grass between the tree and the driveway will grow better. I absolutely do not want to limb up the tree as living with limbed trees in the past at my past two homes was really a pain and ugly. He doesn't seem to get it. I've attached a picture of my tree. It is really healthy and beautiful and will grow over to the driveway in a few years anyway. Help?
Denver County Colorado
Expert Response
I agree with you. Personal opinion - spruces look better when lower branches are retained and allowed to sweep the ground. Limbed up spruces look a little odd, although sometimes limbing up is necessary.
May be you could limb up lower branches only on neighbor side?
To keep branches but just shorten them some, cut back to a "fork" that has needles on the side branch. Or, in March/April, cut back to just above a side bud. More on pruning evergreens: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/Gardennotes/617.html
May be you could limb up lower branches only on neighbor side?
To keep branches but just shorten them some, cut back to a "fork" that has needles on the side branch. Or, in March/April, cut back to just above a side bud. More on pruning evergreens: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/Gardennotes/617.html
HI Robert,
Thanks for your reply. Do you have any references or "facts" that I can use to deter my neighbor? I really don't want him to limb up his side of the tree. It will just be really ugly all around and doesn't solve the problem. I know the tree has a dense mat of roots and is much more efficient at picking up any water than anything else around. It out competes the grass (and their sprinkler isn't hitting this spot well if at all but thats of course not the way to fix it in his mind.) He thinks the tree is putting off heat and therefore killing the grass with the heat. (Clearly he don't know what the driveway is doing but I digress.) What would be helpful is some information about the root system and how efficient it is at picking up the water, how the tree is structured and how limbing it up means the snow will now break the limbs because it no longer has the support from below, thus damaging the tree further, creating more maintenance by now needing the dead to be trimmed every year, and of course creating more opportunities for diseases and insects to attack the tree. Its really a bad idea. The trouble is that without some "credible" sources to refer him to he will find all the dummies out there on the internet who say its a good idea blah blah blah…. I've lived with it and it is dusty, dry, messy, unsightly and really, really hard to grown anything under it. I really would like to make him understand just how big of a deal it is for us to take on the responsibility of not only paying to have the tree limbed up and the major re-landscaping underneath including changes to our sprinkler system which may or may not be possible, but also the long term effects to the tree, maintenance and the pain in the a@$ of living with it.
Even if you could definitively, as the "expert" pretty much say just what I've already said in a way that I can give him so he can see for himself what the expert opinion is. I used to have a garden design business, I've been through the program at DBG and the Master Gardner's program. But even so I don't have the "credentials" or more importantly the support material. Right now it's just what I say vs. what he says. You know how that goes….
Thanks for your reply. Do you have any references or "facts" that I can use to deter my neighbor? I really don't want him to limb up his side of the tree. It will just be really ugly all around and doesn't solve the problem. I know the tree has a dense mat of roots and is much more efficient at picking up any water than anything else around. It out competes the grass (and their sprinkler isn't hitting this spot well if at all but thats of course not the way to fix it in his mind.) He thinks the tree is putting off heat and therefore killing the grass with the heat. (Clearly he don't know what the driveway is doing but I digress.) What would be helpful is some information about the root system and how efficient it is at picking up the water, how the tree is structured and how limbing it up means the snow will now break the limbs because it no longer has the support from below, thus damaging the tree further, creating more maintenance by now needing the dead to be trimmed every year, and of course creating more opportunities for diseases and insects to attack the tree. Its really a bad idea. The trouble is that without some "credible" sources to refer him to he will find all the dummies out there on the internet who say its a good idea blah blah blah…. I've lived with it and it is dusty, dry, messy, unsightly and really, really hard to grown anything under it. I really would like to make him understand just how big of a deal it is for us to take on the responsibility of not only paying to have the tree limbed up and the major re-landscaping underneath including changes to our sprinkler system which may or may not be possible, but also the long term effects to the tree, maintenance and the pain in the a@$ of living with it.
Even if you could definitively, as the "expert" pretty much say just what I've already said in a way that I can give him so he can see for himself what the expert opinion is. I used to have a garden design business, I've been through the program at DBG and the Master Gardner's program. But even so I don't have the "credentials" or more importantly the support material. Right now it's just what I say vs. what he says. You know how that goes….
No, nothing more than personal opinion.
If grass dieing is to the S, SE, SW or W of your spruce, it may be caused by turfgrass mites (clover mites or Banks grass mites). These OFTEN kill grass at the S, SW or W base of an evergreen tree or on S, SW or W slopes during March-May. (photos attached) Turf mites have caused lots of injury in May of 2013 and 2014. Water is the best preventive, apply water with hose/sprinkler during dry warm spells with no snowcover Mar-May
If grass dieing is to the S, SE, SW or W of your spruce, it may be caused by turfgrass mites (clover mites or Banks grass mites). These OFTEN kill grass at the S, SW or W base of an evergreen tree or on S, SW or W slopes during March-May. (photos attached) Turf mites have caused lots of injury in May of 2013 and 2014. Water is the best preventive, apply water with hose/sprinkler during dry warm spells with no snowcover Mar-May
