Originally Posted by Sean Freeman

The tree was in a school yard so client wasn't going anywhere...4 times because thats the way it worked out, first two cuts were to natural unions further in along the limb, last two were judged by me to be the best compromise location relative to the length of the limb left hanging out there, timing was really driven by the school yearly timetable (always when school hols on) and by the status of the epicormics, cut more off after the epi8cormics that were produced had clearly failed.
Results....well to be honest no different visibly than if we had removed the entire limb in one since there was no control to judge it against...mind you the final cut had not shot epicormics the last time I saw it.

I think if you have a very big limb that has to be reduced/removed and you have the ability to gradually reduce it rather than remove it intirely in one go then I would favour staged reductions...do I have scientific evidence to support my feeling...no.