Trees & Shrubs The Natual Way

Aesthetic Pruning: (FAP –"Full Aesthetic Pruning")	Brende & Lamb specializes in aesthetic pruning. Our goal is for your trees to look as beautiful as possible. We prune in keeping with the Japanese tradition in which trees look their best when they look their most natural. Even when 30% of its foliage is removed, an artfully pruned tree has the look of one pruned by nature. While respecting the organic limits set by the natural form of each plant species, Brende & Lamb sculpts treescapes to fit the individual needs of each client for view, safety, screening, and tree health. We adhere strictly to pruning principles that put the tree’s health first. These include: retaining enough foliage to sustain a tree’s nutritive needs; maintaining branch composition on each main trunk or limb to allow it to develop strength, taper, and flexibility; pruning a tree from its center outward and downward to achieve proper structure and balance. When a tree artist finishes work the tree is healthier, more beautiful, and has a more natural look.
Aesthetic Pruning: (FASP –"Full Aesthetic & Safety Pruning")	This pruning option applies to large trees, like Monterey Pines, when the client wants the tree to look as good as possible as well as be as safe as possible. FASP differs from Safety Pruning in that we spend the extra time necessary for the small touches that allow the tree to sing.
Removals: (RX – "Removals)	Because we focus on aesthetics, Brende and Lamb does not bid on removals of large trees. However, we are competitive on removal of medium and small trees (trees under 50 feet tall and less than 24 inches in diameter). We take great care to preserve understory plants, and to leave the removal site looking tidy.
Safety Pruning	Given the client’s individual needs, safety pruning is sometimes more appropriate than Full Aesthetic Pruning. The goal of safety pruning is to reduce, through judicious pruning, the risk of tree failure––be that branch, column, or entire tree failure. We are expert at recognizing when a tree is unsafe or on its way to becoming unsafe; weak trunk crotches, heavy branches, and unbalanced tree structures often require measures such as cabling weakly-connected trunks, removing select branches, or simply lightening heavy branches. Brende & Lamb’s expertise is also valuable in determining when a tree or branch is in fact not unsafe, which often serves to reduce both costs and the client’s worry. - Safety Pruning includes the removal of dead and dying branches. Branches whose taper is not sufficient to support their weight require reduction of the mass on the end of the branch. This process, called ‘end-weight reduction,’ requires a finely-tuned understanding of tree aesthetics if the branch is to retain its natural grace; when done poorly the results of end-weight reduction are jarring. Trees with dense crowns sometimes require thinning. This reduces the “wind-sail” effect by allowing winds to pass more easily through the crown, thereby reducing pressure on the trunks and roots. Though the emphasis in Safety Pruning is to reduce the likelihood of tree failure, if done by a tree artist the tree looks better, and more natural, at the end of the job. - The “target” that would be damaged if a tree fails determines if Safety Pruning is necessary. Danger of failure may exist, but the tree may be located where failure wouldn’t cause significant damage to person or property. A tree above your child’s nursery has different safety requirements than a tree in the middle of an open field. If the tree poses no danger, we frequently talk people out of Safety Pruning.
Corrective Pruning (Reconstructing Damaged Trees)	Because of natural accidents, but more frequently because of bad pruning, trees require reconstructive surgery to look and feel their best. Returning a hacked tree to a form that is healthy and graceful requires a good eye and an understanding of what the tree will look like in future years. It usually requires pruning over several seasons. A basic rule of Bonsai is that branches should flow away from the trunk in a natural gradation from coarse to fine. Stub cuts, a frequently encountered pruning mistake, are jarring to the eye, and correcting them cannot accomplished in one season. However, even trees whose crowns have been reduced to a thicket of stubs can usually be teased, over time, into a pleasing form.
View Restoration	Pruning to enhance view can be among the most satisfying, or the most frustrating, of pruning experiences. Revealing, in an aesthetic manner, a previously hidden view of the Golden Gate gives great pleasure to both the client and the tree trimmer. The frustration in view pruning comes when neighbors have contradictory ideas about the amount of foliage to be removed, or what constitutes aesthetic value in a tree. Some find no objections to a topped cedar, whereas others feel a topped eugenia to be crime against beauty itself. The conflict between view and foliage can become intense when a neighbor, who loves his tree, has planted a redwood that is gradually eating away a previously expansive view of the Bay. Many, but not all, view conflicts have pruning solutions. If the tree obscuring the view has the correct branch structure, it can be windowed to enhance tree aesthetics as well as provide a well-framed view of the ever-changing shoreline. - Sometimes tree removal is an option that can serve everyone’s need, if the tree to be removed would be cause problems for the tree owner over the long run, regardless of view issues. Removal becomes more palatable when it is accompanied by replacing the view-blocking tree with a tree of equal or greater aesthetic value, one that will not grow into the view corridor. Replacing a black wood acacia blocking a view, and threatening to shed limbs on the tree owner’s roof, with a coral trunk Sango-Kaku maple may well be in everyone’s interest. Negotiating view pruning among neighbors who have a less than friendly relationship requires an innate sense of fairness, psychology and diplomacy, as well as a solid understanding of tree health and aesthetics. It’s not for the faint of heart, the impatient, or for trimmers with thin skins.
Pruning for Screening	It may seem counterintuitive that pruning, which involves removing foliage, can be essential for maintaining the leafy green necessary for privacy screening. Plants concentrate their leaves where they get the most sunlight, which is at the outer surface of the crown. Leaves wither and die if they fail to get sufficient inflorescence. Leaves at the outer surface of the crown act as umbrellas and absorb, or reflect, light, thereby shading out leaves in the interior of the crown and those on the bottommost limbs. We frequently encounter tree hedges which were planted to give a sense of privacy for back yard gardens but which now have bare trunks to a height of ten feet that fail to provide privacy, yet support luxurious crowns twenty feet above grade that cast deep, and unwelcome, shadows on a thinning lawn. To maintain a plant as a screen it is necessary to prune so that light reaches foliage at the height critical to screening. This involves thinning the crown to reduce the umbrella effect and allow light to penetrate the lower branches, where the screening is most important. Some trees, including most pines, have a growth form in which the lower screening cannot be reclaimed once lost. Other species, like photinia, have latent buds under their bark that, when stimulated by light, will sprout new green. Diligence in maintaining a thin crown and healthy interior is the best way to ensure desired privacy from your screening plants.
Other Services	Disease removal, structural pruning, cabling, and bracing.
More Info	Coming soon...