Good Timber

Yesterday, I was writing a blog post for a client who owns a tree care business. I like to write blogs on tree care because I have a little experience with landscaping, trees, transplanting, and trimming.

A lot of people don't realize that trees require a lot of skill to care for properly. Trimming them badly greatly increases their risk of getting diseases or infestations from pests. To trim a tree the right way, you need to have knowledge of how the tree heals itself, and what sort of cuts will make it stronger as it grows, instead of cuts that will take away its strength.

Trees are in it for the long haul. They can roll with the punches when they are healthy. A month without rain won't faze an established tree. They have roots of steel, and they have defense mechanisms to help them survive during times of drought or bad weather.

Trees aren't fickle like grass or delicate like flowers. If you give them what they need and don't take their legs out from under them, they can only get stronger with time.


So, what gives a tree that strength?

First, you take out anything that is dead or dying. Dead branches are literally dead weight that steal resources from the healthier parts of the tree.

Next, you cut back on new growth. New growth is good, but too much of it at once requires too many resources, so the tree's health suffers. It's like trying to run a marathon without training. Usually, removing about a third of new growth helps regulate the tree's resources a bit better.

Finally, and this is the tough part, you cut back good, established, healthy growth. You do this in order to make other parts of the tree stronger. But you have to get the balance right. You need to leave the tree strong enough to come back to full strength, to recover. You need to choose the right branches to cut away so that the remaining branches provide stability.

The losses during pruning wound the tree. It suffers, it develops a stress response, it stops growing to focus on healing.

But it's what happens after that is truly amazing. When done correctly, the tree can seal over the wounds, recover from the loss of canopy, and start to become truly resilient. The fruits and leaves that are left develop a new beauty that would not have been possible before. Over time, with repeated culling and cutting away, the tree moves from a rough diamond to the most flawless princess cut in a gold setting.

Sometimes, when people start working on a new goal, they think "What have I got to lose?" But there might be a better approach. You actually do have stuff to lose when you commit to something new.

You lose time. You might lose money. You could lose friends. You lose comfort. You lose the security of how you've always done things.

You've got a lot to lose. There will be pain as you lose it. There will be sacrifice. You might even end up sacrificing some strong branches that you depended on, that have been growing well and doing well for you.

But, what have you got to gain?

What will you give up to have those deep roots, that glossy foliage, that strength that keeps you steady through the droughts and winds and long winters?

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees,

The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

                                                                                   
                                                                                              -- Douglas Malloch

Good timber does not grow with ease.