Muscatine Arboretum Association

Shade Tree Short Course

Mar 24, 2003

Interesting course this year, as usual. Quite a bit of information on pruning - some of it almost unbelievable. Pruning does not seem to protect trees in storms. In fact leaving holes in trees makes them more vulnerable. The best advice based on research is to reduce the size of your tree by pruning back the total mass, if you are worried about wind damage. That is you cut back the same length on all of the branches of the tree. Sort of like giving it a hair cut. Instead of telling the barber "take off an inch overall" you'd say "take of two feet" or something comparable.

OF INTEREST TO NATURE LOVERS.(March 24)

The Muscatine Arboretum is alive with chorus frogs, redwinged black birds, killdeer, meadowlarks, robins,and grackles. If you look up while you are walking your dog, you'll always see some kind of hawk or even a Peregrin falcon. There are also doves and pigeons and some small bird that flies over the wetland in the Arboretum that I can't identify. Mallards are trying to decide which of the ponds will be best for raising their young, the shallow one in the Arboretum or the deep secluded one in the Discovery Center.