Trunk Chop...what next?

kompik

I must admit that I was pretty sceptical about the whole notion of doing "trunk chops" and the ability of broadleaf trees to backbud and recover from it, but considering some photos I saw of the process I decided I should give it a try. So, since I had a scraggly-looking Chinese Honeysuckle about 9' high with a trunk caliper of a tad over 2" that my wife wanted to get rid of, I decided it would be an excellent victim, er, test subject. I cut the trunk down to 26" in March (it was still snowing now and then around here, though we had had a few 60-degree F days) and hoped for the best.

Well, I must say that I'm now totally convinced of this "magical" ability of trees to bud out of old wood. New sprouts started busting their way through the trunk's craggy bark in mid-April and have been going gangbusters ever since. I'm pretty sure there are more leaves on the tree now than there ever were last year when it was 9' tall. In fact, now that the foliage has a spread of 5' in diameter and I'm wondering what to do next!

Conveniently, I've go two good-sized shoots starting to harden near the top of the trunk. I've heard about cutting the top of the trunk-chop into a "V" just above these kind of branches so it will (supposedly) heal into a natural-looking crotch over time.

Currently, the shoots grow out about 2'-6" without any sort of ramification. I'm guessing that I want to let the bottom branches grow out almost unchecked while trimming back the top branches pretty hard to keep them slender. My major concern here is timing; is it too soon/late in the year for this kind of pruning?

Overall, though I've read about trunk-chops, I've never really seen a step-by-step "how to" guide. I'd like to keep using this Honeysuckle to train on so that I know proper techniques for when my Linden Tree and Crab Apple are ready for a trunk chop in a few years. =)

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