Pruning standards are the tree care industry’s effort to encourage all tree pruning arborists to produce results conducive the natural patterns of normal/ typical tree growth habits.

Industry standards play a critical role in addressing the difficulty in promoting proper tree management over the, hopefully, long life of the tree, with possibly long intervals between each pruning. Over their lifetime, trees may be trimmed by different arborists with widely varying tree pruning philosophies, or maybe no philosophy at all.

However, if we all treated trees with the same general philosophy, trees would be allowed to thrive throughout their potential lifetimes regardless of who maintained them.

Every pruning decision should be preceded by a clear identification of the pruning objective. In other words, know the intended benefit of removing that plant part. It is also preferable to remove as little foliage as necessary to reach that objective and to make as few wounds and as small as possible to reach your pruning objective.

Although there’s a time and place for formally shaping trees, an ideal pruning job should try to work with the natural form and growth habit of the tree. The highest compliment paid to an arborist after judiciously pruning a tree may well be when the client can’t tell any work has been done.