Pruning specifications can be a powerful tool for the arborist. They can assist with accurate job estimation costs, creating clear tree owner and landscape manager expectations, and employing effective crew management. Pruning specs essentially provide us with a map to navigate Pruning Road winding through the arboriculture landscape.

Ed Gilman makes in clear in his book An Illustrative Guide To Pruning that pruning specifications are not standards, as laid out in the ANZI A300 Part 1 pruning standards and other similar publications and guides. These standards are general guidelines and definitions of terms that simply give us the language to utilize in our pruning specifications. As Gilman puts it, utilizing the standard as a specification would be similar to building a home without a blueprint. There would be no direction and massive confusion. A pruning specification is like an unwritten story left up to the arborist to tell.

A proper pruning specification is a written document that details a pruning prescription based on an individual tree analysis. A specification can include several different aspects, but some of the main points include: identifying specific trees on site to be pruned, pruning system, pruning objectives, methods for executing those objectives, location of pruning cuts in the crown as well as size of pruning cuts and number of cuts, and pruning cycle. Specifications can even include illustrations or live demonstrations depending on how elaborate the demands are for a particular project.

The specification begins with analyzing the tree or trees we are asked to prune. The arborist analyzes characteristics like age, structure, health and prior pruning practice in order to create the proper pruning prescription. We also take into consideration the tree owner or managers perspective in our analysis. This analysis will help direct us in forming an objective or several objectives. The pruning objectives are important for both the tree and the tree owner. Objectives are critical because it guides every other aspect of the specification. In fact, with every cut an arborist makes, they can ask themself this question: does this cut satisfy the objective(s)? If it does not help with obtaining the objective, we are straying away from the pruning task. For example, if the pruning objective on a particular tree is building clearance, and we find ourself on the opposite side of the crown from the building making a removal cut, we know we are off task. In another hypothetical situation, If deadwood removal is not an objective, and we are cleaning deadwood, then we are again off task. Objectives help us focus. These are small examples of how pruning objectives can help drive efficiency and help guide our thought process as arborists. From the pruning objective, every other detail of the specification transpires.

Methods are how we deliver the pruning objectives-this is the package objectives come in. The A300 standard gives us the language that defines our methods mainly in what types of pruning and pruning cuts we use: reduction, raising, cleaning and heading. We can thin a scaffold limb to reduce loading, we can also reduce it. We can raise a tree crown to provide clearance. We can head a young fruit tree to create new structure. We can clean a crown of deadwood, and we can thin it of crossing branches. Methods are important for arborists, because much like objectives, they direct our thoughts and actions in the tree.

If you haven’t already guessed, specifications are meant to be specific. While objectives and methods help guide arborists in a general way, it is the aspect of dosage in pruning specs that really delivers accuracy when it comes to client expectation and cost estimation. When we talk about pruning dosage, we are referring to how much pruning we apply to a particular tree. In our pruning specifications, dosage is defined as the size range of pruning cuts (ex. 3″-4″ diameter), how many cuts (ex. no more than 10 cuts) and where in the crown (ex. periphery, lower third, south side) those cuts are located. We can highlight dosage with pictures and illustrations, we can use laser pointers on walk-throughs, or we can physically reach out and touch branches that we’ll be pruning in order to communicate to both the client and the crew the exact dosage in the pruning prescription. As estimators, this gives us the ability to know exactly how much material we need to process, how many crew members it will require to prune and process those branches, and most importantly, how much time that will take. In this way, pruning dosage determines time and crew requirements, and it also sets client expectations. It should be noted that dosage shall ultimately be determined by the tree itself, because depending on age and tree species, dosage can be doled out ONLY in specific quantities. Structure pruning a medium-age shade tree, pollarding a street tree and reduction pruning on a veteran tree will require very different dosages in order to maintain a high level of health and vigor in the tree system.

The key to any great story is structure. This is what pruning specs are: a detailed story outline to follow for great pruning based on individualized tree assessment. A Yellow Brick Road of sorts. When questions arise in the pruning process, good pruning specs will help us quickly answer them. Their details should us how to prune, where to prune, how much to prune, why to prune, and even when to prune again. Gilman suggests that better pruning specifications will ultimately lead to a more professional industry overall. Could that be the greatest story ever told?