Caring for My Linden Trees
In order to keep my working farm and all its gardens, allées, and groves as beautiful as possible, I pay lots of attention to the maintenance and care of all my trees. This time of year, my outdoor grounds crew is busy pruning many of the trees - most recently, my allée of lindens.
Lindens, Tilia, are medium to large sized shade trees that are easy to maintain and attractive in any landscape. I have two linden tree allées - one that runs from the old corn crib all the way down to the chicken coops and the other slightly older allée near my stable. These trees, with their pyramidal shape and slow growth, are excellent specimens for the type of pruning called pollarding, a very severe method that involves cutting the branches back either to the trunk, or even all the way down to the top of the trunk to promote the growth of club-headed stems and dense new foliage and branches. Pollarding should be done annually. We started pollarding these lindens in 2021, and already we've noticed good development.
Enjoy these photos.
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- These lindens have grown beautifully here at the farm. This allée is adjacent to my pigeon pen and just outside my stable. This photo was taken in summer when the trees were full of leaves. Lindens have a loose canopy that produces dappled shade on the ground below, allowing in just enough sunlight for shade grasses and flowers to develop nicely.
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- And in autumn, the leaves take on a beautiful golden hue before dropping. Linden trees are easy to care for and ideal for urban landscapes because they tolerate a wide range of adverse conditions, including pollution.
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- This photo was taken last April, a couple months after we first pollarded these trees.
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- And here they are just before this year’s pruning – look at all the growth from the past 12 months. The best time to prune and pollard trees is when the trees are dormant, during the cold winter months. It’s best to complete all pruning before early spring when the buds begin to form. Dormancy pruning reduces the amount of stress placed on the tree. The reduced flow of fluids in the tree during the time helps the pruning wounds heal quicker.
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- My peacocks and peahens are always so intrigued by all the activity around the farm. Here are some of them watching the crew as snow is falling.
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- Chhiring begins by cutting off suckers and low dead, damaged, diseased, or crisscrossing branches. He uses a good pair of Okatsune bypass pruners. Each crew member always carries a pair of sharp snips. Remember, a sharp tool always cuts clean, and helps the plant to recover better. Dull cutting tools rip and shred the plant tissue.
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- Here, Chhiring uses a long-reach pole pruner to cut higher branches.
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- This tool has about a 1/2-inch cutting capacity making it perfect for suckers and new growth.
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- This branch shows some of the lower cuts that were made.
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- The following day was much more sunny. This entire process takes a few days to do properly by hand, but it is all worth the efforts to have well-manicured, healthy trees. In pollarding, each year the long slender shoots that grow below the cuts are removed, and a set of new shoots develops creating a gnarled appearance. Pasang continues pollarding high up in this tree. He is trained in climbing trees and wears all the necessary safety equipment including gloves, a helmet, eye protection, and a body safety harness.
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- Pasang is essentially forming a “knuckle” or “bole” by removing growth back to the main stem.
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- Here is one tree all done – notice the tops are starting to develop the “nubs” or “knuckles” – these will look even better in a couple more years. More thought and planning goes into pollarding than regular topping, and lopping. Pollarding is similar to coppicing but when a tree is coppiced, it is regularly cut back to ground level to stimulate the growth of vigorous, new stems.
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- Here, the lindens in the front are done, while those in the back have yet to be pruned. Pollarding is started when a tree or shrub reaches a certain desired height.
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- Down below, the crew spreads out a large tarp to catch all the fallen branches. This makes cleanup a lot easier and a lot faster.
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- Once the tarp is full, the branches are loaded onto the dump truck and taken to a designated pile for the wood chipper. Traditionally, the cut branches were either burned as fuel or used for building. Pollarding was a way of using wood over time, rather than cutting it down and having only one-time access to its wood.
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- This is a dead branch – notice the dark brown wood. Dead branches, or those without any signs of new growth, are always cut, so the energy is directed to the healthy, living branches.
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- And for comparison, here is a cut live branch – light in color.
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- Pasang moves onto another tree and also removes branches that appear weak or have a crotch angle of less than 30-degrees.
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- The peafowl seem to like the pollarded trees – they perch on each one as it is done.
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- This peacock claimed another tree all to himself.
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- Pollarding can help make trees live longer by maintaining them in a partially juvenile state and by reducing the weight and windage of the top part of the tree. By the end of the second day, nearly all the trees are complete.
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- And here is the allée all finished after three days. Some of the other types of trees that can benefit from pollarding include beech trees, black locust trees, catalpa trees, hornbeams, horsechestnuts, London planetrees, mulberry trees, redbuds, and willows. There are many ways of pruning and training trees to grow in unusual shapes. I will continue to share photos of my pollarded linden trees as they develop.
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