Early Spring is the perfect time to work on deciduous trees. This is largely because the trees still have no leaves at this time. Take a look at my brand new Chinese Elm.
I thought this tree was pretty cool because it needed a lot of work, but had a great structure underneath. Since I've taken a few of these classes, I wasn't afraid of cutting away most of the scraggly branches to leave a solid foundation for my new tree. This type of heavy pruning shouldn't be a problem as most of the buds haven't formed yet. 
Here is the picture after all the hacking was complete. Believe me, I cut some heavy branches off of this tree. The photos do a good job of showing the tiny branch removal, but a few conflicting larger branches were removed as well.You may notice that the last picture shows the Elm outside. This is because it needs to stay cold still. If the temperature is going to approach freezing, I will move it into the garage for the night, but it is important to keep deciduous trees cold for as long as possible. This way they can put forth a large surge of energy when it finally warms up enough. I can't let it freeze because that could kill many of the new buds and potentially the tree itself. In a month or so, when the temperature stabilizes above 50 degrees F, I will put my other trees out to join this one for the summer.
