Pruning Again

Before

Yardwaste day was creeping up on me and I wanted to get that bin filled up so I would feel like we were getting our money's worth. There is so much to do here in the yard that at times it is completely overwhelming but there is nothing to do about that but tackle one thing at a time.

We have a second Purple Plum tree in the backyard that is in desperate need of pruning and while I can't prune it as it needs to be done, I definitely can make a dent.

Tools of the trade

This tree sits right off our back deck and the branches at the bottom were so low that you would hit them walking down the steps on that side. There was some dead stuff in there too, and a ton of crossing branches and suckers from previous trimmings.

I grabbed the small pruners, the big loppers and set to work. It only took me a few minutes to realize that I was going to need more than those two tools. I had spread out a tarp on the deck because when I pruned the front plum tree, I found out how much of a mess cleaning up these branches could be when there were plums already on them.

In the driveway

I went back to the garage and decided what I needed was our sawsall with the new pruning blade on it. This was a perfect excuse to bring out a power tool and I was looking for any excuse. So grabbed the sawsall, our new blade, and the extension cord, set it all up and set to work.  With the sawsall, I was able to take out a couple of big branches I would have not been able to do before.

After

Once I got everything cut off the tree, I bundled up the smaller stuff on the tarp and took it down to the driveway to be cut into small bits to put in the bin. I had to drag the two bigger branches to the driveway on their own since they wouldn't fit in the tarp and I didn't want to mess up anything else during the course of dragging them down the side of the house.

It took a good 30 minutes to cut most of the smaller  pieces up to fit in the bin and then I had to fire up the sawsall again on the two branches to cut them in thirds. None of them were more than two inches in diameter so it was no problem.

If you look at the tree now, it looks a lot better even if it isn't as good as it would be should we hire a professional. And it is great to be able to walk under it without getting hit in the head by branches.