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élaguer vs rabattre

English translation: prune vs. cut back

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
French term or phrase:élaguer vs rabattre
English translation:prune vs. cut back
Entered by: mediamatrix (X)

17:11 Dec 17, 2008
French to English translations [PRO]
Science - Botany / many ways of cutting plants!
French term or phrase: élaguer vs rabattre
I'm trying to differentiate between them. Here are the defintions I have to translate:

Élaguer: tailler un arbre pour lui donner une forme satisfaisante (sciage, tronçonnage)

Rabattre: couper un arbre ou une tige au ras du sol pour avantager les nouvelles pousses.

Rabattage: Sectionner les grosses branches d'un arbre.

I've also got émonder, which I've translated as 'to trim' (tailler un abre - même action que l'élagage, mais pratiqué seulement sur les tiges et les petites branches). And I've got étêter, which I've translated as 'to top'.

I first thought that élaguer should be translated as 'to prune' and rabattre as 'to pollard' and rabattage as 'pollarding' for 'rabattage', but I'm not sure. Maybe rabattage should be translated as 'to cut back'?

I found the following definitions online:

Voici donc le complément d'information que tu souhaites :
Elaguer c'est supprimer tout ou partie de certaines branches d'un arbre pour contenir son développement;
Rabattre, c'est supprimer des branches ou des rameaux sur une plante pour provoquer le développement de pousses en plus grand nombre et la densifier.
L'élaguage ne se fait que sur des arbres et le rabattage sur toute sorte de plante (je le fais par exemple au printemps sur un arbrisseau comme le perovskia pour que sa floraison soit plus dense).
Bonne journée

Also:

ARBORIC. ***Étêter*** un arbre, un arbuste. Couper la cime; élaguer. Cet arbre, planté sur le bord de la rivière il y a sans doute plus d'un siècle, avait été étêté dès sa jeunesse comme un saule (Bern. de St-P., Harm. nat., 1814, p. 82) :

***ÉLAGUER***, verbe trans.
A.− Dépouiller (un arbre, un arbuste) de ses branches et branchages superflus. Élaguer un arbre, une haie; branches élaguées. Quasi-synon. ébrancher, éclaircir, émonder, tailler. Comme un garde forestier qui, le printemps venu, élague avec soin les tranchées de sa forêt (Pergaud, De Goupil, 1910, p. 79). Mais dans l'air on entend toujours un sécateur qui élague discrètement les branches inutiles (Bosco, Mas Théot., 1945, p. 56) :

***RABATTRE***
ARBORIC., HORTIC. ,,Supprimer une partie d'un végétal pour diminuer sa taille et provoquer le développement de pousses nouvelles`` (Fleurist. 1978). On ne rabat pas la vigne, on la recèpe (Bén.-Vaesk. Jard. 1981).

So, what I'm proposing is

étêter = to top
élaguer = to prune
émonder = to trim
rabattage = cutting back/pollarding?
rabattre = to cut back /to pollard?

But I'm really not sure. Sorry to ask so many terms at once, but I need to separate them all in my head. Or at least 'élaguer' from 'rabattre'.

Any ideas gratefully received!

Many thanks in advance,


Sheila
Sheila Hardie
Spain
Local time: 04:00
prune vs. cut back
Explanation:
The differences between these terms have as much to do with the 'purpose' of the exercise as they have to do with the 'method'.

'pruning', as mentioned in asker's definitioons, refers to the removal of vegetation to encourage the formation of flowers and/or fruit in the following year.

'cutting back' is a more drastic form of pruning, having the additional purpose of controlling the overall size of the plant. Sometimes the need to control plant size may take precedence over the objectives of pruning - to the extent that the subsequent year's crop may be sacrificed.

'coppicing' and 'pollarding', mentioned elsewhere on this K-page, are specific forms of 'cutting back'. pollarding is where you cut off all the branches of a tree at the head of the trunk; coppicing is where you cut all the branches at (or very close to) ground level and the tree effectively has no trunk.

An important difference between pruning and pollarding/coppicing is that a pruned plant retains both old wood and wood from the current year - and the next year's growth shoots (mainly) from the current year's growth. So the plant steadily gets bigger from year to year - until it's so big it has to be 'cut back'. A pollarded/coppiced tree, in contrast, only has old wood (the bare trunk or the stump, respectively) and all next year's growth shoots from this.

Also, a tree is usually coppiced at intervals of several years, and is not pruned at all in this period, since the purpose is to grow thick straight 'branches' for use as stakes (or for charcol burning). Pollarding may be repeated every year (especially for ornamental purposes in parks and gardens), to provide thick vegetation providing summer shade.

Source: recollections of stuff I learnt from my grand-father who was head gardener on a country estate in England.
Selected response from:

Jennifer Levey
Chile
Local time: 22:00
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
4 +2prune vs. cut back
Jennifer Levey
4 +2to prune (or lop) vs to coppice
B D Finch
4to prune versus cut down/pull down
Mostafa MOUHIBE
Summary of reference entries provided
étêter
Alain Pommet

  

Answers


10 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
to prune versus cut down/pull down


Explanation:
to prune versus cut down / pull down

Mostafa MOUHIBE
Morocco
Local time: 03:00
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in ArabicArabic

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  SJLD: salam Mostafa - it's Rabattre not abattre - the R makes all the difference :-)
42 mins
  -> yup! i didn't see the R :(
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3 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +2
prune vs. cut back


Explanation:
The differences between these terms have as much to do with the 'purpose' of the exercise as they have to do with the 'method'.

'pruning', as mentioned in asker's definitioons, refers to the removal of vegetation to encourage the formation of flowers and/or fruit in the following year.

'cutting back' is a more drastic form of pruning, having the additional purpose of controlling the overall size of the plant. Sometimes the need to control plant size may take precedence over the objectives of pruning - to the extent that the subsequent year's crop may be sacrificed.

'coppicing' and 'pollarding', mentioned elsewhere on this K-page, are specific forms of 'cutting back'. pollarding is where you cut off all the branches of a tree at the head of the trunk; coppicing is where you cut all the branches at (or very close to) ground level and the tree effectively has no trunk.

An important difference between pruning and pollarding/coppicing is that a pruned plant retains both old wood and wood from the current year - and the next year's growth shoots (mainly) from the current year's growth. So the plant steadily gets bigger from year to year - until it's so big it has to be 'cut back'. A pollarded/coppiced tree, in contrast, only has old wood (the bare trunk or the stump, respectively) and all next year's growth shoots from this.

Also, a tree is usually coppiced at intervals of several years, and is not pruned at all in this period, since the purpose is to grow thick straight 'branches' for use as stakes (or for charcol burning). Pollarding may be repeated every year (especially for ornamental purposes in parks and gardens), to provide thick vegetation providing summer shade.

Source: recollections of stuff I learnt from my grand-father who was head gardener on a country estate in England.

Jennifer Levey
Chile
Local time: 22:00
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 12
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Euqinimod (X)
9 mins
agree  Rachel Fell: I'd say pruning [to give a good shape] and cut hard back [to ground level] - like for e.g. buddleia, fuchsia, etc. http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Fuchsia magellanica
1 day 12 mins
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13 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +2
to prune (or lop) vs to coppice


Explanation:
Your definition of rabattre definitely is not pollarding. Taking a tree down to ground level to get young shoots is coppicing.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 16 mins (2008-12-17 17:28:06 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Pollarding is when the main branches are cut back close to the trunk and the trunk itself reduced. The French seem quite addicted to this whether it is necessary (e.g. for street trees), or not.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 6 hrs (2008-12-17 23:20:49 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

As SJLD notes, coppicing is more forestry, though I have had it done to trees to create a hedge between a park and new houses. I shouldn't think you'd coppice your rose bush.

Lopping would tend to be more drastic than pruning and actually seems more appropriate for both your description of élaguer and for what I'm asking my neighbours to do to their trees, but I suspect they'll only prune them.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 6 hrs (2008-12-17 23:23:35 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

It is quite possible that the French boundaries between these terms are not quite the same as the English boundaries between terms and so you might translate the same word differently in different circumstances. (Chopping away at machine translation.)

B D Finch
France
Local time: 04:00
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 12

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  SJLD: yes, coppicing certainly corresponds to the def of "rabattage" given above - perhaps more commonly expressed as "hard prune to ground level" or similar/yes, but it's more of a forestry than a gardening term
38 mins
  -> Thanks SJLD. Coppicing is actually a very special skill, not the same as "hard pruning" and coppices can be extremely old. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppice
agree  Miranda Joubioux (X): coppicing fits perfectly with the descripition of rabattre, but not for rabattage, which sounds like 'reducing'. Elaguer is definitely 'prune'
3 hrs
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Reference comments


4 hrs
Reference: étêter

Reference information:
pollard

1. A tree whose top branches have been cut back to the trunk so that it may produce a dense growth of new shoots.
http://www.answers.com/topic/pollard

Alain Pommet
Native speaker of: English
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