Master gardeners practice pruning techniques
Berl Tiskus
Master gardeners Jean and Jon Gravning take a look at a tree to see where it might need pruning
Berl Tiskus
MSU County Extension Agent Jack Stivers, left, and master gardener students Jon Gravning, Leslie Dalbey and Jean Gravning discuss what to prune.
Berl Tiskus
MSU extension agent Jack Stivers shows his master gardener class how to deal with sunscorch.
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POLSON — Pickups and people with loppers and tree saws advanced on the row of maple and ash trees fronting Kerr Dam Road near the sewer lagoons on April 10 as Jack Stivers and his Montana State University Extension Master Gardener’s class arrived to give the trees a trim.
“We volunteer to give (the trees) a pruning every year,” Stivers said. “It’s part of the whole process of tree care.”
The class started pruning about four years ago. Some of the 15 to 20-year-old trees had gotten out of hand, Stivers said. Some had grown around the plastic casing on their trunks and the class had to deal with that issue, as well as misshapen trees.
One problem this year was sun scorch, which happens on a very warm day and a cold night. The cold causes the cells to rupture, class member Leslie Dalbey explained.
Light-barked trees, such as the ash trees planted in this area, are prone to the disease, Stivers said.
Using pruners, Stivers showed the class how to excise the bad bark and eliminate a place for insects to infiltrate.
The trees provide site abatement — a windbreak — so people don’t have to look at the sewer lagoons.
