"It's something I would never have thought of," said my friend,
talking about some pruning her son did in their yard, "but I
like it." My friend's son used a thinning cut called skirting,
limbing up, or crown raising. My friend is right that most
people don't consider this particular cut. So what exactly is
skirting? Cass Turnbull, in "Guide to Pruning," discusses this
simple and effective pruning cut. It is simply to remove the
lowest branches of a tree so that it looks less bulky and heavy.
The cut should be about 1/4 inch above where the original bud
began. Be careful that you don't cut into the trunk and that you
don't leave a nub. Turnbull quotes Dr. Alex Shigo, the renowned
research scientist known as the Isaac Newton of arboriculture,
who says, "Trunk wood is much different from branch wood." The
trunk houses the tree's vascular system. Both water and sugar,
by means of pipe-like tissues, move up and down through the
trunk by zylem, in the center of the tree, and phloem, right
under the bark of the tre