L – Amputato Amicus
ABOUT MIKE
Growing up, the adults around me had their hands full trying to keep me out of trees, the Silver Maple in our front yard in particular. I spent most summers earning extra money doing yard work, having several regular customers in my neighborhood. Immediately after high school, my first summer job was working for the city parks department of my Michigan home town during that very sad period when Dutch Elm disease was ravaging our town’s population of American Elm trees. I learned a lot from that experience, not least of which was how satisfying and enjoyable I found the work to be.
I spent most of my adult life working in social services, intermittently earning a living as a gardener/arborist. In Northern California during the eighties I ran a pruning business for 5 years, and again for four years during the nineties when I also served as caretaker/groundskeeper at two separate properties, an urban commercial campus the other a retreat center.
Raised by two artists, I particularly enjoy the extraordinary natural forms and shapes of trees. Like many of us, I never really lost that early, innate affinity for them. When I was able to retire from the world of social services, I started Pruningman. In business since January of 2001, I specialize in pruning trees and large shrubs.
In my happy place
Please Note: If you’re currently, or do become, a tree client, don’t be unduly alarmed or surprised if someday you find my business card at your door or see me standing out in your yard. I’m not stalking you, really, I’m looking at your trees. A vital component of my continuing education involves revisiting trees that I’ve pruned (months or even years in the past) to observe how they’ve responded to the pruning.
CONTINUING
EDUCATION
“The more you know, the greater your contact with the unknown.”
I attend workshops and training seminars covering various aspects of tree/plant care and maintenance. I also maintain membership in several work related organizations and participate in mentor/mentoring relationships with other pruning/plant care professionals.
MEMBERSHIP AFFILIATIONS:
International Society of
Arboriculture (ISA)
Member #169163
Please Know This:
While I am a dues paying member of ISA – which gives me access to the latest research, news bulletins, journals, training seminars, conferences and workshops – I am NOT an ISA Certified Arborist. Please see www.isa-arbor.com for a more comprehensive explanation of the difference.
“You are perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement.”
Japanese Laceleaf Maple
This image was shot following six consecutive years of carefully considered pruning. For optimal results both time and patience are required. These trees are dynamically alive organisms that will vigorously react to whatever’s done to them and either neglect or haste generally results in undesirable outcomes. Not all trees respond in the same way to pruning. Unlike Maples with a more upright vertical growth pattern that benefit from occasional pruning, this type of Maple requires frequent judicious pruning for best results. While these are true tree’s, they possess very shrub-like growth characteristics and the more sunlight they get, the more thickly they grow and more shrub-like they appear, thus requiring more frequent attention to maintain their potentially breathtaking, traffic stopping appearance.
“The tree makes clear the pruning it needs.”