I just returned from my honeymoon to find the wonderful weeping cherry tree out in our back yard has blossomed like crazy! It’s beautiful. One small problem…
The previous owner of our house (we moved in around Christmastime) was an evil woman who did a number of things to this house that can only be described as massively stupid. That’s another story for another time, but among the massively stupid things she did was to let her young children nail a bunch of boards to this specimen cherry tree so they could climb it.
There are three planks nailed in to the trunk of the tree with framing nails that form a rough ladder. Further up on one of the larger limbs, there’s a wooden sign nailed in. I’d like to remove the planks and sign.
My tree doctoring skills are not exactly up to snuff, so I’d thought I’d reach out to the dopers for some advice. Is there a best time of year to do this? Should I pry loose the planks and leave the nails? Can I yank the nails altogether? Should I spray the holes with that tar spray stuff?
What’s the best way to get all this yucky crap off my beautiful tree without killing it?
Yes, you can definitely remove the nails. And the tree will love you for it. From what I have read, using tar spray is now officially passe. Apparently you just leave the open wound to heal, much like a small cut on your finger heals better without a bandaid blocking the air.
Pull the nails carefully. Use a block of wood for leverage if necessary.
I believe you’re in luck timing wise, for the weeping cherry is best pruned in the spring after flowers drop. Sounds like that’s fast approaching. If you’ll take some care in removing the nails, removal shouldn’t be an issue. Find a large enough hammer or v-notch wrecking crowbar and be sure and use something other than the tree trunk as a fulcrum. As long as the nails come out smoothly and aren’t causing ripping or splitting, pull them on out.
While you’re at it, online articles mention the necessity of removing dead wood on weeping cherrys and that if you want to continue the weeping habit to remove any new shoots heading upwards.
Now may not be the best time to be doing it - work like this on most deciduous trees is best done when they’re dormant - otherwise they can bleed lots of sap and this can attract insect pests and provide an inroad for bacterial or fungal invasion.
Personally, if it were my tree, I’d remove the wood (if necessary, by carefully cutting it away), then cut the nails off flush carefully with a junior hacksaw, leaving them in place - in a couple of years they will be completely embedded and leaving them in place - they haven’t killed the tree so far - may cause less damage than pulling them out.
Not answering your question,but a somewhat related story.
I do my own logging/resawing/furnituremaking and was given a nice sized cherry trunk (about 18"dia.)
When resawing,I had to stop and wonder WTF was with the last cut? There was a maple board,crossgrained,completely overgrown by the cherry,invisible 'til then.The nails had turned into black stains.
Some kid’s treehouse ladder.Didn’t kill the tree.
Removing the nails increases the chance for disease, although does not guarantee it. The wounds are healed, and you’ll be creating new ones. There are products that are the equivalent of topical ointments you should cover the wound with. Visit a local garden center or nursery before you create new/multiple wounds on the tree.
Anecdtoal evidence is not helpful in these cases. You are increasing (not guaranteeing) chance for disease w/out treating the wounds, and regional conditions are so varied that you cannot control for all variables based on someone else’s experience with a tree.
I worked in a lumber mill for one summer while in college. There was a plank section of white pine in the bosses office that had gone through the saw and exposed a bullet in almost perfect profile. Some hunter missed his deer and nailed a tree instead. That was cool!
Again, kind of off topic, but I hate to see nails and other objects left on/in a tree. Sooner or later, that tree might be turned into a piece of furniture. With luck, embedded nails may have crumbled away by that time, as Carson O’Genic has noted, but there’s the chance that somebody using a tool (power or otherwise) is going to hit a still-intact nail. It can be dangerous, and ruin a saw blade or a plane. (Not all wood goes through a high-powered, professionally-run mill before it gets used in furniture making.)
Yeah, I keep wondering about this too, particularly with regard to landscaping trees. It isn’t just random nails and stuff like that. Landscape trees may have been bolted to remedy splitting trunks. A landscaper bolted my neighbor’s shade tree with a carriage bolt that was freaking enormous - at least an inch in diameter and two feet long. I bolted a small cherry tree myself with an 8 inch, 1/2 inch diameter bolt. In both cases, the trees have grown over the bolt. I hate to think what happens when a saw blade encounters something like that someday.
Exactly, while not all wood is going to be used for furniture, there’s quite a bit that will be eventually cut up with a chainsaw. Even encountering something with just a tree saw might necessitate having to restart the cut. If possible, it just seems like a wise practice to keep tomorrow’s work area safe and clean today.