Trees tend to shed their weakest limbs
By John Warrington
Mostly the rains are welcomed by the gardener, but large trees can have very serious problems when they have to carry enormous weights of water on their limbs and leaves during the rainy season.
Many in fact take the easy way out and drop the weakest limbs and those that are diseased. Mostly they don’t do much harm, but they can, and they deserve to be taken seriously as a potential health risk.
Some trees will shed huge branches without warning. The breadfruit is quite capable of doing this, and one in my garden in Barbados weighing over 30 tonnes dropped completely during a severe rainstorm. Large palm leaves can fall from fully-grown palm trees, sometimes with spectacular effect on passing cars and pedestrians. It often happens going through the cemetery.
Other factors cause trees to drop limbs, and this is usually associated with water deprivation rather than over abundance of it deposited on their leaves. Some years ago, many fine trees have been killed on Merriman’s Mall as a direct consequence of the council pouring tons of cement over the ground with no thought for the water needs of the plants. That little exercise had an immediate effect and the area is now barren compared to what it was twenty years ago.
Concreting near to trees and shrubs is bound to affect the plants to a greater or less degree, and generally is to do with water restrictions to the growing roots and growing or fully-grown branches, which will certainly lead to the shedding of limbs in the future. The golden rule therefore, is not to concrete within the estimated area the head of the tree is likely to cover when it is fully grown, for this is the area that is going to be utilized by the tree roots in their quest for water.
The tree surgeon’s main task is to minimize the damage occurring during normal growth, say by lightning or by physical damage from grazing animals or impact by vehicles, or mistakes resulting from bad pruning in the past. The surgeon should examine every part of the tree he comes across, and make sure that cuts have been and are being done perfectly and that no jagged wounds have been or are being left to allow infection to occur. The aim in the end is to produce a balanced tree. Balance is all important, for such a tree is less likely to topple over onto a passing car. The tree pruners of Georgetown generally seem to know what they are about, especially when it comes to balance. Even so they are sometimes guilty of leaving jagged wounds which might well cause problems later and they nearly always fail to put on a protective coat of tar or paint.
Lack of money is likely to be the case here I think, but there is never an excuse for jagged wounds. You wouldn’t expect it from a hospital surgeon, and you shouldn’t allow it from someone doing surgery on your trees. In your garden, it is sound practice to paint over any wound more than an inch in diameter and make sure surgery is done with a razor sharp knife or chainsaw. Essential in fact.
Certainly the finished wound should be pared until the cut is smooth and then painted. In the tropics tree wounds start producing a callus very quickly and if the cut has been done properly the scar will be covered in just a few months.
Take the greatest care when using saws and especially chainsaws and try and get someone who knows about them to help you and, may your God go with you.