Got told my pruning cuts were "dog legs" and had to look it up

I was cutting dead branches off a big old maple in Minneapolis last spring when the homeowner came out and said I was leaving too many dog legs. I thought she was talking about something on her dog. She explained it means leaving a stub instead of cutting flush to the branch collar. I trimmed those stubs down and the tree looked way cleaner. Has anyone else had a customer call you out on something you didn't even know was a problem?

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1 Comment

jason_kelly86d ago

Man, I'm gonna be the one to say it but I kinda think leaving a little stub, a dog leg or whatever you call it, is fine most of the time. I've been cutting trees for a decade now and I've seen plenty of stubs heal over just fine if the cut is clean and the tree is healthy. Homeowners get hung up on the fancy terms like branch collar but in a real world messy situation, especially with big heavy limbs, cutting flush can actually damage the bark more if you slip. Yeah it looks a little uglier for a season or two but the tree isn't gonna die from a half inch stub. It just feels like one of those rules that sounds good in a book but doesn't matter that much when you're actually working.