We read it all the time. ‘Take wire off before it bites in.’ Many of us actually do this. And only about half the time is it actually what we should do.

So. Wire. On branches. Big problem, right?

To make it simple, the question of when to remove wire is actually broken down into two questions:

1. Is the tree a conifer or a deciduous tree?

2. Is the wire biting in?

And the answers are, if the tree is a conifer, we need to let the wire bite in a little bit before taking it off. If we don’t, the work will be worthless. We’ll have wasted our efforts.

If the tree is deciduous, try (this is nearly impossible, but try anyway) to take it off just before it bites in. If a wire bites into a branch on an old deciduous tree, you might as well…