Former Maple Tree after Bad Pruning
Tree topping continues! The concern about a large tree falling on the house, garage, autos or pedestrians sends out calls to cut the tree back. If the tree in photo does recover (grow), the new branches will be mostly weak suckers. After 2-3 years, the sucker growth will be susceptible to high winds and snow/ice storms than if the original tree had been left alone or pruned correctly.
The proper pruning job does cost more money than a “butcher job” in photo. This is because the tree pruner is more highly skilled. The shade tree will enjoy a longer life and keep your summer air conditioning bills lower. Also, average people do
Leading reasons why homeowners butcher their trees:
1. My neighbor did it first
2. Tree was blocking signage to my business
3. Didn’t know that it was the wrong practice
4. Unlicensed tree pruner said it was the right thing to do.
To avoid this problem, select small to medium sized maturing trees such as redbuds, dogwoods, crabapples, hawthorns, Japanese maples, trident maple, and lacebark elm.
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I understand your concern about these trees, but I’m confused because I don’t understand why pollarding and coppicing work so well. In Europe and Japan one regularly sees highly successful topping off of trees – trees that seem to thrive for hundreds of years with regular haircuts. Why/how is this different? I don’t ask as a challenge but as a sincere effort to understand. Where I live, some individuals occasionally top off their trees that run in the electric utility right of way. In my opinion this leads to very good looking healthy trees. If the individuals hadn’t topped off the trees, the utility would simply trim off one half of the tree that runs closest to the line. Not only is this aesthetically jarring, it also inclines the trees to eventually fall over for lack of balance. On the other hand, the trees that are topped off look very healthy and seem to thrive.