A Cut Above the Rest : Students Learn Correct Way to Prune Trees

It was final exam time on the Cal State Fullerton campus, but Ramon Alvarez showed no signs of nervousness.

With sure, steady moves, Alvarez reached high into an oak tree and cut a limb. Like a skilled surgeon, Alvarez made a clean, neat excision. The health of the tree would not suffer because of the pruning.

Alvarez’s teacher, Alden Kelley, beamed with pleasure. “These are good students,” he said. “They’ve really learned how to care for trees. Now I’m going to do all I can to help these men get good jobs.’

Alvarez and eight other Latino day laborers worked under Kelley’s watchful eyes earlier this week to demonstrate their newly learned skills. By midafternoon, Kelley pronounced them all proficient and deserving to pass the Level 1 exam. An outdoor graduation ceremony, complete with certificates, was held on the grounds of the Fullerton Arboretum, which adjoins the university’s campus.

Though the unusual tree-cutting class is held on university grounds, the class itself is not part of Cal State Fullerton’s curriculum. The instructors are volunteers, and the student tree-trimmers are unemployed dayworkers from the Brea area. There is no fee.

Kelley, a former college professor who is now a self-employed tree consultant, teaches the unemployed workers how to prune trees and shrubs without hurting the plants. The project, which started Oct. 27, is a joint effort by the Brea Job Center and the nonprofit Tree Society of Orange County.

“This program will help these men get jobs,” said Jack Heninger, executive director of the Tree Society. “The program also helps to save the life of trees, since we’re training people to cut trees correctly. And the program helps the arboretum, since we provide free workers to help with tree trimming here.”

Kelley works with Alex Moreno, head of the Brea Job Center, in teaching the workers. Moreno frequently has to translate English into Spanish because most of the Latino workers do not speak English.

The Brea Job Center refers the workers to Kelley. He teaches varying numbers of classes, according to level of proficiency. For Level 1, the students have to attend four days of instruction and pass a written exam, which is given in Spanish.

“Ultimately we hope these men can get a certificate from the International Society of Arborculture,” Kelley said. “The certificates we give for completion of Level 1 aren’t ISA certificates. But all the skills we’ve taught at this level are according to ISA standards.”

Heninger said Tree Society members have long expressed concern about the damage caused to trees in Orange County by unskilled pruners. Kelley said the classes he teaches will produce tree cutters who prolong the life of plants while also making them beautiful.

“These men prune so well that most persons won’t notice the trees have been pruned--only that they look good,” he said. “That’s a criterion of quality pruning, just as it is of a quality haircut.”

Kelley holds a doctorate in plant morphology and formerly taught biology at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania.

“This is a lot of fun for me to be teaching again,” said Kelley, who gives much of the instruction wordlessly. He simply shows the right tool, the right place to cut, and things to look for on the tree or shrub. Nature has its own universal language.

“I don’t speak Spanish very well, but I can show them what to do,” Kelley said.

On Monday, Kelley gave each worker a yellow plastic streamer. Each streamer had the name of a student on it. “When I assign a student to a tree, he puts the streamer on it, and then I know who did the work,” Kelley said.

Since Monday was graduation day for Level 1 students, the yellow streamers went on trees that were, in effect, final exams for the students.

“This program will help me get a job,” said Alvarez, who is 38. He smiled broadly as he skillfully moved his tree-cutting implements around the oak tree he had been assigned.

Heninger, the Tree Society’s executive director, smiled as he watched the student tree-cutters showing off their new skills.

“A good deal has to be a good deal for everyone,” Heninger said. “And this is a good deal because it’s a good deal for the workers and for the Tree Society and for the arboretum.”