Pruning maple for beautiful shape and structure is best done in late winter/early spring when the tree is dormant and the structure of the branches is visible.
Maple trees should be trimmed either in late winter or during early spring. The best time to prune them is immediately before they begin to bloom. This ensures their health. Maple trees can be pruned during the late days of summer in order to direct the shape their branches will take.
For this reason, we recommend that you do not start pruning maple trees until they are at least 3 years old, which is definitely not the best time to prune them. For this reason, many gardeners claim that the best time to prune maple trees is in summer, when the tree is full of leaves. The best time to prune trees and shrubs in spring is after flowering. Bleeding can be reduced by pruning in late spring when some trees are full of leaves.
Some trees, such as birch and maple, bleed heavily when pruned in early spring. If necessary, trees can be pruned at any time of the year, but healing will not be as fast as if pruned in early spring. When pruning branches to maintain a certain shape of the tree or to thin the crown, cuts can be made at any time except in early spring. Maple trees can be pruned in the spring, with the best months for pruning just after the leaves appear.
Maple Trees and Their Bleeding Sap
Maples contain sap that will “bleed” if the tree is pruned in early spring or late winter. Oaks and apples, most maples, including Manitoba maples, can lose particularly large amounts of sap when pruning oaks and apples. Maple, birch and walnut fall into this category as they release sap when pruned.
Early pruning allows a lot of sap to come out, which should not damage mature trees, but can weaken young trees or cause stress. If you prune the tree in winter or spring, the sap will run out or run out. While this won’t harm the tree, it doesn’t look very pretty, so prune it back in late spring or summer if you can.
This facilitates the formation of the tree and saves time on cleaning the tree from settled pruned branches. Pruning will help shape the trunk so that there is room under the branches as the young maples grow. Pruning is done to shape the tree and get rid of damaged or dead branches.
The first cut is very important because it lightens the collar of the branch and prevents accidental peeling of the bark from the tree trunk when the branch is removed. Don’t cut the collar of the branch, the ridge that sits right at the base of the branch itself, so as not to damage the tree. Cutting a branch flush with the trunk damages the swollen area by interfering with the ability of the trees to close or separate the wound from the pruning, forming callous tissue.
Tips on Pruning a Maple Tree
Reducing crown pruning leaves large pruning wounds that can rot or become infected. If you’re going to “branch” your tree by cutting off the lower branches, avoid stressing the plant by only removing a few branches at a time rather than many at once. When pruning older trees, prune them to remove dead, weak, or crossed branches.
To avoid stress or encourage unsightly growth, never remove more than one-fifth of the crown of Japanese maples; You also shouldn’t prune a branch that is larger than half the diameter of the parent trunk. If necessary, apple trees can also be pruned in spring or summer, but this should be avoided in autumn so as not to stimulate new growth when the tree should be preparing for winter.
Summer pruning is also less stimulating for plant growth than winter pruning, so you can get by with a little more and the tree will stay thinned out longer. The main reason pruning around this time of year is the worst is because it encourages plant growth just when your maple should be thinking about hibernation.
The maples are dormant, the branches are easier to see when there are no leaves in the way, and that time is before the sap starts to flow. Of course, autumn or winter is a good time to prune as the tree is dormant.
Timely Pruning Improves Maple Sap Production
As mentioned earlier, pruning maple trees in summer or late spring means significantly less sap loss from the tree than in early or winter, resulting in a happier, healthier tree. Proper pruning in late spring or summer (or even before late summer) not only means less sap loss, but wounds caused by tree pruning heal faster, so there is less chance of any fungal infection entering the wound afterwards . Cut side by side. Wound healing process.
The Sesmas Tree Service recommends pruning or pruning in late spring, from May to early June, when the new leaves on the tree are fully developed. Unlike maples, oaks prefer to be pruned or pruned between late fall and early spring—always removing old, dead, and unwanted branches.
An exception when wound dressing is recommended is when pruning oak trees during the growing season. Periodic pruning throughout the tree’s life may be required to remove broken, dead, or dying branches, or those that interfere with foot or vehicular traffic. Annual pruning during the first few years after planting often helps the tree establish itself and develop a strong and aesthetically pleasing structure.
At the end of winter, when the days are hot and the nights are cold, root pressure can cause sap to flow from any wounds in the bark. Trees that bleed excessively are maple, willow, birch, walnut, beech, hornbeam, elm, and yellowwood.