Pruning Little Leaf Lindens

9 years ago

Sorry for the long post.

Background: I have a 20 to 25 year old, healthy, 35+ foot tall, LL Linden planted in a mostly sunny location on a 30 degree slope in zone 7a. Due to the deep shade that it provides, and intense run off within a few feet of the trunk when it rains heavily, grass does not grow well beneath it.

I have wanted to cover the root zone with mulch and maybe pachysandras, but the tree is only a couple of feet from the edge of my property line, and my neighbors insist on trying to grow grass right up to within 2 feet of the trunk. I would rather try to spread and divert the water runoff into a more sunny location (it would have into their yard unfortunately) where the thicker grass could withstand the water flow, but they disagree.

The neighbors want me to limb up and/or shorten the lower branches until sunlight can reach the ground below the tree when the sun is lower (they seem to ignore the fact that their 50 foot tall pin oak, lower southwest on the hill, will still block a lot of the sunlight anyway.)

They also want me to have the tree thinned out to the point where sunlight can penetrate the crown and make its way to the ground beneath the tree. They argue that if I don't thin the tree, a high wind storm will likely damage or destroy (maybe even knock over) the tree as it is too dense to withstand such force.

Issues/Questions:

1) it seems to me that the LLL is a tree which is low growing by nature. The trunk divides out to another main limb at only 5 feet. I have already limbed the lower branches so that they are 6 to 8 feet from the ground. As a result, the bottom of the tree has a sort of flat appearance making the tree have an overall shape like a big mushroom. I feel that pruning any higher will make the tree look unnatural. Do you all have any advice on this? Am i correct in thinking that LLLs are naturally lower statured and that limbing it is different than limbing something like a sycamore that has 1 primary trunk with mostly lateral branches? Any advice is welcome.

2) Is it a bad practice to shorten long limbs by simply cutting them mid branch in order to make the tree less wide?

3) Am I also correct in my belief that a LLL is naturally a very dense tree and that "thinning" it out (assuming that it's done properly by a professional) will detract from its look, especially if it is thinned out it to the point where sunlight can penetrate it and hit the ground near the trunk?

4) Will NOT thinning the tree, and allowing it to maintain its nature density, cause it to be significantly more prone to wind damage?

5) Isn't it a bad idea, and also a losing battle, to try to establish grass right up to a tree's trunk, at least in the case of a LLL? Won't any amount of pruning still result in the tree winning this battle?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

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Comments (7)

brandon7 TN_zone7
9 years ago
1) There is a limit to how much you can remove before most people will think the tree looks unnatural/weird. Different people may have different ideas about the "ideal" look. Don't prune higher than you think it should be. Based on your description and without a picture, I would tend to agree with you that the tree is already pruned up about as much as I would want to prune it up.

2) YES!!! Always completely remove limbs or at least cut them back to a crotch with a branch of at least 1/3 the diameter of the main limb. Stub/heading cuts result in an inability for the tree to cover over the wound before rot sets in.

3) Pretty much.

4) NO!!! Thinning and pruning up will result in more top growth and increase the the likelihood of wind damage. Your neighbors are just trying to get their way by saying anything they can think of. Based on your description, they seem misguided.

5) Some types of grass do much better in shade than others, if you neighbors insist on grass and you decide to let them have their way. It does seem a shame that they can't work with you to optimize the landscape there.
viche
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks for the reply brandon.

Unfortunately, a good number of branches (30% of the tree) hang over the neighbors property line and by law, they have a right to trim them. I tried talking them out of this to no avail, so I agreed to cut the branches short where they requested it. (They may have pruned more branches than I cut that day for all I know.) These were mid branch cuts, which I knew was bad, but I don't remember seeing any obvious crotches like the ones you described at the time. I'll have to inspect them again.

So let me ask you this, if I can find no crotches where there is a an offshoot which is at least 1/3 the diameter of the branch I am cutting, would it be better to leave the stubs, or just prune the branches back to the trunk. The cutting that I did has already made the shape of the tree somewhat unbalanced. If I were to cut those branches back all the way to the trunk, I'd wind up with a tree that has a very lopsided bottom half. These stubbed branches are probably up to 15 feet off the ground. Not sure what to do now.
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brandon7 TN_zone7
9 years ago
Tree health wise, you'd be better off pruning the limbs back to the trunk.

One would think that the nutty neighbors would not like looking at such a mess. I guess this is just another example to show that, when we plant trees, it's probably best to plant them so that their canopy does not extend into the neighbor's yard (when possible).
viche
Original Author
9 years ago
True. Too bad I didn't plant it though :(

One other question. I may start a new thread for this if I don't get an answer here. Over the past few years the neighbors have cut down 2 large sycamores which shaded my LLL for half the day. Last summer, the tree finally had sun from around 10:30 am (when the sun makes its way over my house) until 7:30 pm. That summer, for the first time, the tree had the most glorious smell and attracted literally thousands of bees. We loved it. Last summer the neighbors also added a few inches of top soil and grass within a few feet of the trunk. This only covers maybe 35% of the root zone.

1) should 't mature LLL bloom/smell like every year? This year we got the light green pedals and little yellow balls but no smell or bees.
2) was it the extra sunlight that pushed it over the edge last summer
3) was it the extra soil that is preventing it from doing it this year?

Thanks again
viche
Original Author
9 years ago
Edit to above post.

Most of the light green pedals attached to the little yellow balls, which I assume are flower buds, have already fallen off the tree. It looked like only some of the balls had bloomed. So what made them bloom, stay on, and smell so well last year, and why hasn't it happened before or since? We did have that incredibly long and cold winter this year.
hairmetal4ever
9 years ago
Hmm.

Well, adding soil over top of the root zone is bad. It may or may not hurt the tree, depending how deep and how much, but it's not a good thing to do - the tree grew its roots at the depth it wanted to. Too much soil piled on can reduce air flow and smother them.

As far as grass underneath, Lindens IME are as dense as maples when it comes to shade - neither is a good tree to grow grass under.
viche
Original Author
9 years ago
Remember this tree is on a slope where there is a lot of rain runoff. The soil had eroded and roots had been uncovered unaturally quickly. Some of the soil was just to level the yard again and cover the roots.

Speaking of trees that aren't good for grass, what are examples of ones that are good? I have a thornless honey locust that is struggling at the end of my deck. It loses all of it's leaves by september, and sheds stuff pretty much for the entire green season. It's a mess. I'm thinking of cutting it down and planting something a little further away from the deck. It would be on the east side of my house, at the bottom of a slope, getting sun from 10:00 til 2:00 until it's taller, in acidic clay soil. The deck is a 5 feet higher, so I'd like something that grows up and out, and provides medium shade. Something that isn't super messy or prone to issues would be great too. Any suggestions?