When should a black locust be pruned?
Pruning is largely damage control here, and every cut has two consequences specific to this species: wounds are borer entry points, and cutting stimulates root suckering. Do not reduce or top a declining locust hoping to buy time — take the deadwood, and if the stem is compromised, take the tree, because a topped locust regrows brittle sprouts on a rotten trunk and becomes a worse hazard than it started as.
Reading black locust before you cut
The tell is the trunk, not the canopy: knotty swellings, oozing or sawdust at borer holes, dead and broken limbs scattered through an otherwise leafy crown, and hoof-shaped fungal conks on the stem. Black locust also leafs out notably late every spring, so a bare tree in mid-May is a poor reason to condemn it — the trunk evidence is what separates stressed from structurally finished.
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