18 years in and I just realized I was pruning branch collars wrong

I've been doing tree work around Portland since 2006, always thought I had the three-cut method down. Last month a client asked me to look at a big maple that kept getting decay at the trunk, and when I got up there I saw the old cuts. They were too flush, no collar left at all. Then I started checking my own work from the last few seasons and yeah, it was the same deal. The Arbor Day Foundation video on proper collar cuts finally made it click. Anyone else have a late-career 'wait, I've been doing that wrong' moment like this?

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the_taylor6d ago

My first big wake-up call was on a job back in 2012, a huge oak over on the east side. I kept noticing these ugly black stains running down the trunk under the old pruning scars, and it finally hit me that I was the one who made those cuts. I went home that night and watched like six different videos on collar cuts, and I felt SO stupid for missing it for that long. Once I started leaving a proper collar, the trees looked way healthier and I stopped getting those callbacks about rot.