Gardening and Horticulture - How does a tree grow ?

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DaveC72
06-14-09, 09:35 PM
Hi all.. not much of a horticulture guy here (yet anyhow.. but the wife is doin fantastic flower gardens these days, maybe the bug will bite eventually..)

But, I got curious about something you guys would know ?

OK, so a tree doesnt grow 'up' from the ground.. it grows up from the tips and grows outward in girth to support the weight. So, if you stuck a nail in a young tree.. that nail would still be at the same height in 20 years (but it would be somewhat/all grown over by bark maybe).

So.. then I look at a small birch or poplar.. it has branches near the ground (its a small tree). What happens to these branches as the tree grows up ? I see lots of tall poplar/birch with no branches until you get fairly high up.

Maybe Ive just never seen a tree shedding a lower branch..

Thanks for info on this.

Newt
06-24-09, 11:20 PM
Hi Dave,

You have me totally confused. Of course a tree grows up from the tip and yes, trees do shed their lower limbs.

Does that answer your question? Maybe you might enjoy reading here.
http://home.ccil.org/~treeman/shigo/index.html

Newt