Specimen Shadetree Branching Pictures

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Here are pictures of poorly branched trees. At Kuenzi Turf & Nursery we work really hard on developing a full and balanced branching structure on every one of our trees. This is partly why we don't sell most of our trees until they are at least 1 3/4" caliper, because this gives us more time to develop this quality branching structure on everyone of our trees!

For pictures of what our trees look like browse the different varieties on the previous webpage.

This is a picture taken after our snowy and icy winter of 2008-2009. This Red Maple as well as the following two pictures, shows the importance of quality branching structure. There was a whole street in south Salem where about 10 of these Red Maples had this slitting problem after the winter ice and snow loads. These trees look somewhat okay, or so it seemed, as they had matured and were about 8-10 inches in caliper.

The problem with these Red Maples was as a juvenile tree at 6-8ft off the ground they either stop growing or were pruned. They were then not properly pruned to remove the poor branching angles at the top of the tree. As you can see in this picture, but as the tree grew they had three to four main branches growing from one point. As the tree continues to grow more pressure as put on these poor branching angles and with the heavy ice and snow loads on the tree they just fell over and split clear to the ground.

At Kuenzi Turf & Nursery we continue to prune and tape up a central leader to about 8-10ft off the ground. By then we have controlled and pruned the branching angles to be more balanced to form a better quality tree. (May 19, 2009)

Another picture of the poor branching angles of a Red Maple. (May 19, 2009)

Another picture of the poor branching angles of a Red Maple. (May 19, 2009)

Here is an example of a Cherry tree that has very poor branching structure. This Cherry was probably planted to close together and was never pruned.

We plant our trees on rows that are 10ft apart and the trees on 4ft apart for columnar trees and 5ft for wider trees. This spacing allows our trees to get plenty of sun light and develop a full and balance branching structure.

This poor quality tree just needs some help. Let us do the hard work and sell you a quality looking 2" caliper tree that you can be proud of TODAY!

Here is the example of why you have to prune a tree and tape it up to a bamboo stack. All of our trees are pruned and taped to a 12 ft bamboo stack, which sticks about 10 ft out of the ground. This allows us to control the branching structure as the tree is a young juvenile tree and develop a quality branching structure.

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Kuenzi Turf & Nursery - Contact us at:

Toll Free: 1.800.285.8337 - Fax: 503.375.7619 - 6475 State St. Salem, OR 97317