Targum Pseudo-Jonathan names the trees: flowering poplar, almond, and plane (Genesis 30:37). Jakob did not pick the first branch at hand. He chose three specific species, each one carrying the white strength of its inner wood, and he peeled strips of bark away so that the paleness underneath shone through.
Anyone watching would have seen a man making walking staves. Anyone who knew the shepherd's craft, and the deeper craft behind it, saw something else. Jakob was preparing a sign. A visible, streaked, spotted pattern — the very marks that would define his wages.
This is what a man who trusts heaven but refuses to be idle looks like. He does the physical work. He cuts, he peels, he places the rods carefully. And then he lets the Holy One add the part that no human hand can add.
The Maggid teaches: prayer without preparation is vapor. Preparation without prayer is arrogance. Jakob peeled the rods because a righteous man gives heaven something real to work with.