Evergreen Valley is now in the midst of shearing season. Shearing – different from pruning is used to give the trees their beautiful Christmas-tree shape. Evergreens that you see in the landscape often have that nice cone shape after many years, but as they are young and growing, they have many branches of different lengths and if left unsheared, the branches will come in very widely spaced. By shearing, we can ensure that each year, the trees will retain a nice shape and the branches will lie closer together to give you a nice, full-looking Christmas tree. Some trees only need a light shear, but others need more.
If you have trees at home that you plan to use for screening, shearing them will help you have a more dense screen of branches to block your view.
Since late June, Andy, Les, Caite, Dakota, Vincent, Austin and Daniel have been working on shearing trees, shaping the tops and making any corrections the tree needs so we will again have beautiful trees this Christmas.
We had a mild winter, so the trees came through very well. We are a bit worried about our new plantings as this long stretch of drought continues. The big trees have deeper roots to allow them to better reach water, but our new seedlings are having a tough time. We will see how they are doing by the end of the summer!