It's Good To Have Friends in High Places

It’s getting close to being too late for pruning back two of our favorite spring-blooming shrubs, forsythia and lilacs. The forsythia is easy and can be done with manual pruning shears, a pruner or an electric hedge clipper. The taller and woodier lilacs aren’t always so simple and require different tools.

Since many lilacs can get 20 feet tall, many of the places you’d want to cut are beyond the reach of a simple hand pruner or lopper. This work calls for a pole pruner, and this can be a very challenging tool. Available with a saw blade at the end or a lopper or both, this tool can get very unwieldy when extended 6 to 12 feet above you. It’s easy to get the saw or the pruner snagged, and then what?

I depend on a large group of rather old lilacs for early spring color and their magnificent scent. But more important to me is the shade that a 25-foot-long row of lilacs provide to the part of my Hosta collection several feet to the east. The arrangement has worked for years, but I have not adhered to the mantra of removing one-third to one-quarter of the height every year to encourage new growth and new blooms all over the shrubs instead of only at the tippy top.

There’s the extra added issue of the main power lines and cable feed that run just above the lilacs following the same route. Pruning up in this area some 20 plus feet off the ground had always made me a bit nervous.

I’ve always used a pole pruner along with a lopper to do this work but if you’ve ever used a pole saw or pole pruner doing work 12 to 18 feet above your head, well you know it’s not fun work and can be very frustrating. It’s always hard to get enough leverage to pull the rope on the saw so that the saw and lopper at the end makes a good cut. And if the limb above is more than an inch thick, that cut can be hard to make. The result is usually a split limb dangling above or the need to make the cuts much closer to the ground.

What’s a gardener to do? If I call an arborist in to do this work each time it’s going to cost me a minimum of $600 (if I’m lucky). But the arborists no longer rely on using manual saws, pole saws and pole loppers. In their arsenal are gas-operated and battery-operated pole pruners and loppers, making the work quick, safe, but still expensive. So, why couldn’t I do the same and save six bills or more?

Sure enough there are at least a dozen vendors who make gas two-cycle, plug-in electric and battery-operated pole pruners and saws for us consumers. It was time to investigate and maybe get my hands on one of these handy, dandy tools.

I spent a few hours going through as many reviews of these saws and pruners as I could find. The professional reviews were helpful, but the reviews of these tools by gardeners were even more helpful. I knew I didn’t want to add another gas guzzler to my collection so that option was written off immediately. There was also the question of weight. Due to a back injury ages ago I have to limit what I lift, with 10 pounds being my absolute. There isn’t a two-cycle gas/oil rig that’s under 10 pounds.

Next was the corded electric type. These were lighter, but I have this fear of cutting through the cord, and with the distance from an outlet this option was very limiting. This left the battery-operated type as my tool of choice, and there were many.

Considerations were battery voltage as that usually relates to the strength and size of the motor that’s being driven. But you also must consider that a more powerful battery means more weight, and that put most of the candidates out of my range. At this juncture I was looking at four or so machines with prices between $170 and $250. There were cheaper ones, but these were flimsy and received poor reviews. The worst part was that the lighter ones were only able to make 12 to 16 or fewer cuts before needing recharging.

These are essentially chain saws/pruners on a pole. They are quite capable of doing just as much damage to the human body as regular chain saws even though the chain and bars, the actual part of the tool that does the cutting, only ranged from 8 to 14 inches in length. The chains are the same one used on gas operated saws and just as sharp.

After going through the reviews several times I chose the Greenworks PSF303 as my candidate to review and use at home. The price I saw in the reviews was around $170 for the tool, the battery and charger. Make sure you get at least these three things as some of the offers I saw were “tool only,” meaning you pay extra for the battery and charger, and that can easily add $100 or double that.

I went on Amazon to order the tool, and just as I was about to click the “buy now” button a notice popped up that there was a newer version available of the same saw and with the promotion it was just over $140. Deal! It arrived via UPS three days later.

The reviews told me that the saw felt heavy — just a hair under 10 pounds with battery — but that it was well balanced and easy to use. Both turned out to be true. But was this just a toy or something that I cold really use around the property? I had bought a battery-powered chain saw a few years ago and was not happy with it. Yes, it cut, but at such a slow RPM of the chain that the cutting was slow, jumpy and clunky. I didn’t not want slow, jumpy and clunky above my head or even near it.

Putting the saw together took all of five minutes or less. As battery charged, I’d read the manual, added the bar oil (very, very important) and was ready to rip. Like all chain saws, the chain had a cover, so this was removed. Safety glasses and hard hat on, I moved to the first stop. A 4-inch dead side limb on a very old apple tree. This was a limb that had to come down and would have been a challenge with a regular pole saw. Ah, and remember, no ear protection needed — there’s no noise, virtually none.

Pull the trigger on the Greenworks PSF303, and I made a cut. From the bottom first, one-quarter of the way though the limb. The tool cut like a hot knife into butter. Then I moved the saw above the limb and made the second and final cut as the limb fell to the ground. Clean, easy and very cool. The cutting was smooth and required minimal force. No fumes, no noise, just remarkable simplicity, and it took all of two minutes at most. Initial impression: I was impressed.

I can’t stress this enough though. This is not a toy, and you can easily do great damage to your body like taking leg, arm or finger off. Wear safety glasses, a hard hat and heavy work gloves at the very least.

On to the lilacs. My first target was a limb that reached out about 6 feet above my head. The limb was about 12 feet long but at one point about halfway down, several shoots were emerging so I thought that this would be the ideal spot to cut. Once done, the shoots inside the cut would take over, flower next spring and fill in the opening I’d created in about two years.

But the bottom cut showed one of this electric pole saw’s shortcomings. I waded into the Hosta bed with the saw and made my assessment of where the cut should be made. I raised the saw and had a problem. I couldn’t see the blade. It’s slightly obscured when viewing the chain straight on. The small motor at the end of the pole that powers the blade blocked my view of the chain. While I knew where I needed to cut I couldn’t clearly see that point. I estimated and began making my undercut that should have been about a half an inch deep.

With me not being able to see the blade or cut in this scenario, the chain went too deep. Lesson learned! The pressure on the limb from the foliage, wood and seed pods let the limb drop just a fraction of an inch, and the sag resulted in the wood binding the bar between the two sides of the cut and the saw was stuck — pinched. It’s not an uncommon mistake, and it’s happened to me before with much larger gas saws. I was embarrassed and thankful that not even the dog was watching.

I tried to push up on the limb with one hand and release the saw’s bar and chain from the binding but no luck. I ended up pulling the limb toward me, and that made it crack then fall, freeing the saw. I was clearly at fault and shouldn’t have made the undercut without eyes on the saw blade. A learning experience though, and the next move was to see how to use the saw and always have a view of the blade and chain, especially when making the important undercut.

I was and remain impressed by this incredibly helpful tool, and as long as you are safety minded and know how to use a chain saw (bottom cut first) it can be quite a time saver. Yes, it will only be used a few times a year, but it will make your work much easier and even more professional. It will probably replace your pole lopper and pole saw, but wait a while before you give these away.

The chain is easily replaced and sharpened locally. Always keep the hard plastic cover on the chain when you’re not using the saw. Don’t let the oil reservoir run dry (use regular bar/chain oil) and expect a small amount of oil residue from the oiler as it lubes the bar and chain.

The downside is that you only have two heights or extensions to choose from with the longest reach being 9 feet. Not really an issue though because by simply stepping further back from the work you can lower the height of the saw. As the other reviews noted, the weight is a little awkward but easily manageable, and after your first few cuts you’ll find the balance quite good. This tool gets at least four green thumbs out of five. Keep growing.