Pruning a BIG Tree With a Little Tool

I shared a post recently about pruning my trees and I shared that I bought a reciprocating saw and was using that to prune the larger branches on the fruit trees. 
 
I started pruning my BIG tree in the backyard that has our tire swing on it. I was using the saw blade that came with the saw. 

While cutting the first big branch, the blade broke. I went to the local hardware store and was going to purchase a blade that cuts wood and nails. There is an entire section of blades and lots of blades that can cut metal, wood and nails or just wood. 


I was going to buy the wood one and a worker came and asked if he could help me. I told him I was pruning and he showed me two different blades made just for cutting trees. 

I was so HAPPY about that as the other blades get hot and the tree smokes due to the friction and moisture in the branches. 

There was a long blade and a longer blade. I was worried about having such a long blade on the saw while climbing up an extension ladder so I decided on the shorter blade and then got a smaller general purpose one. 

I was so HAPPY that the worker came and asked if I needed help.

I have a HUGE job in front of me to get the tree pruned and that little blade was taking forever. 


I borrowed my neighbors extension ladder and started pruning and it was SO much quicker. 

The reason I need to prune the tree is that it is hanging over the house and this tree has broken off huge branches three different times. 

The tree lost the branches during storms at different times. Here is a post about that last one. 
 
Because of the branches falling, the tree is hugely lopsided. The branches were lost on three of the four sides and the fourth side just happens to be over the house. 

About 14 years ago, when one of the bigger sections fell, it took out part of the fence and we hired a company to prune the entire tree. I always prune the lower branches but not  the higher branches. 
 
Because of this, the taller larger branches are now over hanging the fence and the house. 

With that one side being so large, if it falls, I think it would do some damage..

While I was up there pruning, I saw that the rope for the tire swing has grown into the tree and the tree branch has grown around it and I then realized why I felt so strongly that I needed to get that tree pruned. 

If you look closely, in these pictures, you can see that the section of rope nearest the trunk (there are five wraps around the branch) is almost not visible as the tree has grown around it. 

At some point, that will have cut off and weakened the tree branch at that point and if someone heavy were on the tree swing, it could have brought the branch down on them. Or, the branch could come down and hit the house. 

The swing was put up about 7 years ago but I never thought about the rope hurting the tree. I am so grateful that I felt so strongly about pruning it this year. I have never gotten on a ladder and pruned it before so there must have been something urging me to do it. Here is a post about our tire swing.

Another reason it needed pruning is that the gutters on the house get full of leaves and take lots of cleaning each year and I also have a small cherry tree that I am trying to get to grow that you can see in fifth picture from the top and the branches have grown out so much that they are keeping it from getting sunlight so I am going to do a big prune this year. Hopefully, I won't have any branches falling and the pruning will help the gutters stay clearer.


I intend to put up a new tire swing after pruning the tree and am pondering on the best way to do that so that the tree doesn't have any trauma from it. 

We are getting quite the wood pile from all the pruning I have been doing on my yard and helping friends. Just today, Princess Five and I helped my elderly neighbor get the shrubs pruned that were overtaking her sidewalk to the door. 


She was very grateful and I was glad Princess and I had an opportunity to do service. By the end of the week, we should have a larger wood pile and perhaps we will use our wood stoves more next year with all that wood.