How To Prune A Cedar Tree

Have you been concerned about How To Prune A Cedar Tree or whether it’s the correct time to trim? Have you been more concerned about how to go about it? We got you covered.

Cedar trees are pine family evergreen conifers. Now, prior to you conducting a trimming session for any cedar tree, you must understand the fact that there are false cedars and there are true cedars.

It is critical to determine if your cedar tree is actually a true cedar tree. The word “cedar” is actually a common moniker given to numerous trees while in truth, there exist just four kinds of real cedars.

Lebanon cedar, atlas cedar, and deodar cedar are all locally grown in the United States and they thrive in distinct geographical zones. The fourth cedar tree species is extremely uncommon and only sprouts on the island of Cyprus.  

Although real cedars do not need to be pruned on a regular basis, it could be essential to take up trimming cedar trees sometimes. The following topics include detailed additional information and guides;

  • What Is The Best Way To Prune An Overgrown Cedar Tree?
  • Trimming Bottom Branches Of Cedar Tree
  • Why Prune A Cedar Tree?
  • Is It Possible To Trim My Cedar Tree In Half?
  • Cedar Tree Dead Branches
  • How To Trim Emerald Cedar Trees
  • Pruning White Cedar Trees
  • Pruning Western Red Cedar
  • Pruning Cedar Bonsai
  • When Do Cedar Trees Need to Be Trimmed?
  • Does Cedar Grow Back After You Cut It
  • Benefits Of Cedar Trees

Why Prune A Cedar Tree?

Typically, when there is enough space for your cedar tree to develop or grow whereby it doesn’t have to push out other vegetation, many professionals have recommended that such a cedar tree should be maintained untouched.

Cedar tree makes a good outdoor plant, maybe you have like a business or a company you can plant a cedar tree around for beautification without you having to do a lot to care for it

With all these said, there are still scenarios and some circumstances that require trimming cedar bushes. In a scenario in which you are concerned about diseased or broken stems of your cedar tree, you must prune your tree for protection concerns. Also, if your cedar tree is in a situation of overcrowded space, you can undertake to prune your cedar tree with extreme due care.

What Is The Best Way To Prune An Overgrown Cedar Tree?

Don’t be surprised that even after giving large space for your cedar tree to grow, it still ends up overgrowing the space.

Cedar trees can overgrow to the extent that they occupy the remaining free area you could use for cultivating other trees. When you start on with trimming your overgrown backyard cedar tree, you must do it with due diligence and precautionary.

Would you like to keep your cedar tree development in check? Here’s how;

  1. It’s important to take note of the main goal for pruning cedar trees. It’s best to avoid dead areas of the cedar tree when trimming your cedar.
  2. Upon every clip, double-check that there are green shoots on your cedar branch’s end.
  3. You have to prune an overgrown cedar tree through branch after branch and must complete every trim over a lateral sprout (bud).

How To Prune A Cedar Tree Bottom Branches

It is necessary that there is direct exposure underneath your cedar tree, which makes it ideal for trimming the bottom of the cedar tree. This process is a bit tricky but you can get it done by using a clean and sanitized handsaw.

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Very close to your cedar tree’s trunk, provide direct exposure underneath the tree by clipping branches that are around your tree’s trunk base. On the bottom part of your tree’s stem, using a pull stroke hand saw, carefully snip quite a few inches off from your cedar’s trunk.

Follow the instructions stated in order not to harm your tree’s health. You can also go about it through this process;

Firstly, when you are clipping the bottom branches of your cedar, do not clip the whole base stem of your tree fully through. Gently clip the base stem midway through.

  • When you want to finish the trimming, be sure you are trimming from above. Before going to the next trim, you have to line your hand saw edge with the last trim you made.
  • Carry on in this manner for the remaining portion of your cedar’s bottom branches. However, when you are about to perform the last trim on your tree with the handsaw.
  • The trim must be adjacent to the tree’s trunk, slightly beyond the neck, or tip, of the branch. After carrying out this process accordingly.
  • It will create a small branch while removing the heaviest portion of the branch without damaging the branch.

Is It Possible To Trim My Cedar Tree In Half?

Approximately during each year, cedar trees are expected to increase by 30 to 90 cm (1 to 3 ft). Of course, it is very possible and expected for the increase and development of the cedar tree to become out of control. This is why it is best if you remain ahead of pruning activities.

Ideally, on every present season’s development or increment, prune your cedar’s branches by removing ⅓ or ⅔ of the growth. Now, the notion of cutting your cedar tree in half would very certainly destroy your trees. This is because you won’t have a lush cedar tree anymore; instead, you will only create a fully grown cedar tree stand.

Cedar Tree Dead Branches

When you see discolored dead branches on your cedar trees, it signifies the presence of fungus. This fungus is also known as root rot. One of the typical issues with cedar trees is root rot. When your soil is soaking wet and a single part of your cedar tree Branches is getting discolored, all these points to root rot.

Initially, when it attacks the branches, it harms some parts and also triggers the damage of the cedar roots. When left unchecked, it will proceed to damage and kill more stems(branches) till your cedar tree turns up dead.

What makes root rot so dangerous to cedar trees is that there are no known or available treatments after they invade the tree. However, there is a way to slow down and avoid root rot transmission from one part of the tree to another. Once you can identify any cedar tree dead branches, don’t think twice before pruning dead cedar branches off your tree.

It is also significant to mention Blights. The first form of blight attack is your cedar’s leaves. They render the leaves brown and damage them, inducing the fall of the leaves off the stems. Sooner or later, they will also trigger the death of the cedar branches.

How To Trim Emerald Cedar Trees

Emerald cedar trees make eye-catching horticulture or landscape tree complement. Do you want to keep the attractiveness of your emerald cedar trees and also preserve their usefulness? 

It will require considerable effort such as making sure it is trimmed at least once each season. Pruning cedar shrubs will not only help Its exterior parts but will also sustain your emerald cedar’s form.

The best period is during early spring for pruning Emerald Cedars. Be sure to use sterilized trimmers when carrying out trimming activities.

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Keep this in mind; for each and every trim or cut you make, disinfect your tool (pruners). When you do this, the transmission of bugs and diseases would be avoided altogether.

To avoid fresh developments in undesired areas of your cedar trees, you must avoid cutting into the tree’s old trunk when trimming emerald cedar trees.

It’s also best to proceed with caution and try not to make the brown region of the plant too visible.

It’s different when Emerald Cedar Trees are cultivated as hedges. If your cedar is in hedges form, late summer is your best time to trim cedar hedges into the appropriate form.

You can create a traditional horticultural impression by tipping the tops while creating a stealth emerald cedar hedge.

Pruning White Cedar Trees

Even though white cedar trees require less effort to upkeep, they still need the standard procedure of pruning. To give them a chance to fully recover before the growth phase begins, prune them when it’s early spring or late winter. White cedar trees only demand minimal trimming.

The first step to pruning White cedars is to carefully look for sick or damaged branches on the tree.

When you discover branches that need to be pruned, utilize a handsaw to make an incision midway across the branches, 8 inches to 1 foot off from the trunk of your cedar tree.

Afterward, at the midsection of your tree’s branches, make another incision that reaches the first incision you made in order to detach those big infected and injured branches. 

To get rid of tiny, diseased, and sick branches off a white cedar tree, you must carry out the cutting at the stem neck by making use of bypass trimming pruners.

It is hygienic to disinfect the pruners after using them on an infected branch. Isopropyl alcohol will do a fine job of cleansing the edges of your tools.

Regarding development management on a white cedar tree, you must moderately prune the branch ends to effectively assist moderate tree size. It is also best to know that just fresh developments can be pruned when it comes to white cedar trees.

Pruning Western Red Cedar 

Among evergreen plants capable of reaching up to 50 to 60 feet in height and a width of 15 to 20 feet is Western Red Cedar. For landscape architecture purposes, Western Red Cedar Trees can be utilized. Not only that, they can be cultivated as hedges. The appropriate growth zones for them are zones 5-9.

To protect western red cedar structures with their roots and also to maintain the size of the tree while making sure damaged stems are removed, western red cedar hedge pruning is a necessity. However, pruning shouldn’t be a constant activity done to a western red cedar tree.

Minor pruning Western red Cedar encourages fresh development on it even while maintaining the look. If you want to use the Western red cedar like a hedge, shield, or windbreak, prune it during the early spring. To preserve the intended looks of your hedge, you can utilize your pruners to carry out your cedar hedge trimming.

Given how near the tree’s stems or growth are to the roadway or building, remove any stems that pose a safety threat by pruning or shearing them. Assess which twigs ought to be completely removed then toss them down using your snipping shears if a considerable portion of your Western Red Cedar tree is obstructing and posing a safety risk.

If the situation is serious, you might just want to contemplate getting your whole tree taken down.

Pruning Cedar Bonsai

Cedar Bonsai are slow-growing beautiful trees with distinct characteristics that need a great degree of tolerance, and that is not suitable for everybody. It might take seasons to obtain the desired outcome when taking care of cedar bonsai as outcomes do not come quickly.

However, cultivating and nurturing a Cedar Bonsai may be highly fulfilling provided you have enough endurance.

The pruning procedure for cedar bonsai is so sensitive, it must be handled with extreme caution. Before creating any cuts on your cedar Bonsai, you’ll need sharp, sterile scissors.

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If you want to influence the shape of your potted cedar and mold them, you must avoid clipping their needles; instead, when they sprout blooms during the spring period, clip off the new shoots.

Although the Spring period is really the best time of year to trim cedar hedges, when it is during the fall period, you can gently clip the mature branches of your cedar bonsai too.

When Do Cedar Trees Need to Be Trimmed?

There are many misconceptions concerning the pruning of cedar trees.

In a simple and short term, a cedar tree ought not to be pruned too regularly. Even with all this being noted, in a circumstance whereby your “just-developing” cedar tree has two heads (leaders), trimming is ideally required.

You must prune off the inferior and weakened one, the reason for this is to have a sturdy and healthy cedar tree.

Detaching diseased and even damaged cedar tree limbs is definitely enough reason to carry out pruning activity on your tree. Since this form of circumstance is definitely a pressing need, pruning may be undertaken at any moment.

Retaining your cedar tree’s size and appearance can warrant a pruning session. However, only prune to retain the size and the form of your cedar tree from late winter till early spring which is the dormant phase.

Does Cedar Grow Back After You Cut It

The issue regarding cutting a cedar tree would seem to be that each cedar does have a dead zone inside its trunk.

Your tree’s exterior green shoots do not stretch quite far into its trunk even though its newly sprouted green shoots are thick.

Due to their thickness, the shoots keep the sunshine from reaching the older shoots underneath them, so they die as a result of the lack of light.

While trimming your cedar tree’s fresh shoots, once you trim the fresh shoots down further into the dead zone, your cedar tree will not regenerate or develop any new shoots.

Benefits Of Cedar Trees

1. Architectural Materials And Furniture

Do you want the appropriate choice for your home’s woodworks and furnishings?

Cedar is a popular choice for home Woodworks which often include cabinets, armchairs, tables, even lawn furnishings because of its rich, complex surface and convenience of sawing, molding, and polishing.

More so, when it comes to finishing, the wood’s lack of pitch, as well as resin, renders it perfect for lubricants and spatters.

2. Shelter For Wildlife

For a broad diversity of species and birds, extensive woodlands (forests) of cedar trees, as well as other trees with undergrowth, provide vital shelter for birds and some other creatures.

Nesting plus refuge are provided by the trees directly. The birds also contribute to the spreading of cedar trees to new regions. Not only do they feed on the tree, but they also aid in transferring the seeds to fresh locations.

FAQs

Q: What’s The Deal With My Cedars Dying?

The majority of deaths are caused by a mix of environmental pressures, soil variables, and issues that arise during the planting process.

Q: Is It Possible For Brown Cedars To Reappear? 

Don’t be alarmed if you notice little browning with leaf loss across the tree; your trees will continue to stay generally green.

Q: What’s Causing My Emerald Cedars To Become Brown?

Throughout the spring or fall, it’s common to observe brown needles throughout such periods.

Q: Is The Cedar Bonsai Poisonous?

The four species of genuine cedar are non-toxic.

Conclusion

Cedar trimming eliminates diseased and withering twigs and buds, promoting new development and preventing harm to your house and passers-by. Furthermore, it safeguards your tree against bugs and rodents, along with promoting its natural appearance and blooms.