To TOP or Not to TOP

TREE-SURFER

With the ever increasing trees that are mutilated by TOPPING (Lions Tailing, Hatracking, Rounding over, stub ending, etc. etc.) and the tree topping crews thinking that it is ok to do so and the local authorities not giving a monkies, it has come to where local experts world-wide to make a stand. Once we have collated enough evidence here, with what local experts say, with documentation if need be, we can all approach our Authorities with the evidence to have this kind of mutilation, BANNED......

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The Aerial Arborist
Isle of Man Tree Surgeon| All Aspects of Tree Work
What experts say about TOPPING

arborjockey

I second that brother. Behind you 100%. In what industry can you do the wrong thing (top) for 25-30years and stay in buisness? Come on! There is a hole town up here that over the last 20 years has been topped. The hole town....And guess what? Now that company is doing all the removals on those trees they ruined and killed. The trees were planted by the city. They were on sidewalks so we all know what the maintence is on that. Big $. I would not be lying when I said this company has cost the city and its residence well over a million in tree work. The $ to plant, the $ to maintain, the $ to top, and now the $ to remove. Hell they will probably be contracted to plant new ones. And why does this happen? Only because REAL arborist are to scared to unite and condem them.. Expose the tree killers. The thing is it takes so long for the tree to die. You get huge open wounds for disease, then witchs broom with poor branch union, now you got a diseased tree with poor branch unions being a hazard during its 10-30 year decline tell death. Over pedestrian sidewalks! People find it unbuisness like to talk s--- about another company. Hell Ill let um know. Ill point trees out that they can drive by and look at that, that company has done. Well if i was an owner and had a family to feed things may be differnt on the s-- talking if it hinderd my profit. who knows????

TREE-SURFER

Here are just a few reasons as to Why Not to Top

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5 REASONS TO STOP TOPPING TREES.doc (79.0 KB, 217 views)

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The Aerial Arborist
Isle of Man Tree Surgeon| All Aspects of Tree Work
What experts say about TOPPING

Vector Tree

nope never top

Vector Tree

bigshea13

topping is definatly not pleasing to the eye nor is it benificial to the longevity of the tree. in 90 percent of the cases its due to improper training or lack of proper technique. no doubt one of you is going to read this and rip me a new one but as most of you already know i really dont give a shit what anyone else thinks im going to post it anyhow.
Ive been in the game for the last 15 years... for the last 5 years ive been doing tree care on my own. ive traveled half way across the country and back pruning, planting and removing trees in a wide variety of situations and enviroments. ive grown to take extreme pride in my work. one of my abilities that gratifies me the most is my ability to shape to the customers liking. it took me alot of years and tons of practice to be able to look at a tree and round, flatten, stretch,ect it to fit the desired look that an owner is wanting.
ive returned to the line clearance end of it all again. what a change. no more do i have the option to properly groom and shape and place all the proper cuts that i would normally install doing private work. i now find myself settling for "less than perfect" standards of tree care. im now required to "produce". in order to get the needed amount done i have to cut corners on either the safety of my crew or the quality of my work. its a no brainer for me......seeings how my brother and my best friend work on my crew the trees come second.
i try very hard to do the best i can in the time alloted but im here to tell ya it doesnt always turn out as planned. my new boss approached me last week and told me that if he were going to have anyone trim the trees in his yard it would be me ,but...............he needed more from me production wise. he said that its a matter of vegitative control. if the trees get into the lines its a potential for outages and possibly physical harm to people or their property. the trees are in the utilities right of way. they could just remove them and have nothing left or they can adapt and use alternitive methods of trimming ie...topping in some cases.
i went from 15 trees a day to thirty. last tuesday i topped 66 spruce. the utility is NOT going to pay to have the trees cared for like everyone wants..its just not gonna happen. guys liek me have two choices
1 quit
2 try our damnest to do the best we can to make the trees we have to cut out of the power line look as pleasing as possible

and as i said before...sometimes when your in a hurry they just dont turn out. maybe the lines are burried deeper than origionally thought and by the time youve obtained the proper clearence there is really nothing left to work with.
topping is not good but sometimes its the only solution other than complete removal. if theres no power to turn on your outside lights you wont see your tres in the dark and if theres no power to run your furnaces youll probably have to cut your trees down to keep warm and if you dont have power you wont be surfin tree world.
the next time you see a topped tree under a power line think about the options if there may have been any that the guy who did it had other than to remove it. if you say,"then remove it" think of how it would look if all the trees under all the lines were removed. the world would look like a giant parking lot.

quercus

pardon my french, mate... But I don't think you'll need a poll to vote on this.
Every arb here knows the answer of every other arb. Or is this a method to filter out hacks on the forum?

windthrown

Yah, they call that pollarding around here. I had a house in California with a Sycamore that had been pollarded (stump pruned, butchered, etc) before I bought the place. It was in a tree city, and they would not give me a permit to cut it down. So it was always a pain in the arse to keep that thing pruned; it had a thousand skinny branches growing at 20 and 40 ft high. It took me 5 years to get good limbs and branches growing on that tree again.

mdvaden

This is amusing.

I was pruning a fruitless mulberry tree yesterday, just light thinning and directing it from the house (a bit more than consulting arborist).

And then there were these 3 ten foot tall Austrian pines close to the fence that were planted with the intent of being "bushes" - not tall trees.

So part of the job was to take the top growth off.

They were so thick, I couldn't see what the inside looked like when bidding, but once I started to prune them, I could see the big stub cuts from a prior cutting. Probably was "topping" due to the stubs protruding beyond the unions of limbs below.

So my son was helping on this one. He does not work with me much. But as I'm working on this pine, I say, "Michael, it might be hard to tell inside this mess, but what looks like me topping here is actually crown reduction, because I'm actually planning and thinking about what I'm doing" - as I chuckle and laugh.

Honestly, I don't really even like "crown reduction". Too bad it has to have it's place.

Therrin

Taking "top growth" off of a PINE TREE is TOPPING. Don't plant a tree with the intent of it being a bush! WTF? Plant a damn bush! I see topped pines around here all the time, they're ugly as hell, they look retarded.


So you're suggesting that taking the "top growth" from a pine, as long as you're thinking about what your doing, isn't topping?? What kind of bullshit is this? You can't go teaching your son that kind of stuff!
You're saying that topping is alright, as long as you're thinking about what you're doing, and just calling it "crown reduction" instead??? I can't beleive this!

What Arborist certification do you have that taught you this kind of practice as being okay? This is HACK WORK.

True crown reduction has a definite place. To claim otherwise shows pure ignorance.


Note: propper reduction pruning reduces size while more-or-less maintaining a trees natural form. TOPPING a pine completely slaughters it's natural form. The branches just underneath grow to a height higher than the topped section after several years, and the result is a dished-out looking top structure, looking NOTHING like a normal pine.

NEVER REDUCE A LANDSCAPE TREE BY TOPPING!

It causes decay, cracks in limbs, root decline, bark defects and other problems!

Telling your SON of all people, that what you are doing is alright merely because you're thinking about it and saying it out loud doesn't make it okay!

If someone asked me to "top those pines, because I'm using them for bushes" I'd try to explain they are TREES! not bushes! And then I'd try to educate them of what kind of harm they are intending to have done, and what the results could be instead of blindly just saying "gee, okay" and doing it.

TREE-SURFER

Quercus, hopefully, with enough collated evidence/professional opinions, we can all approach our local Authorities with the findings and help have TOPPING banned. We all know that it is unacceptable 'pruning' and that it is damaging to the trees health, as smoking in a confined puplic place is as harmful to other peoples health and is therefore banned in our country.

What I expect from this poll, is to have honest answers, we are all here as professionals, (input and knowing others on this Forum, proves that), and our Forum leader would soon spot a Hack form the start, I'd say.

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The Aerial Arborist
Isle of Man Tree Surgeon| All Aspects of Tree Work
What experts say about TOPPING

Therrin

I've spotted a hack already, didn't take very long.

Funny thing is, when I look up "Certified Landscape Technician Arborist" in Google, it comes up with 6 matches.

SIX....

There are 53 matches on Yahoo, most of them pointing to sites that Mvaden is affiliated with. It sounds like a made-up title for a glorified greenskeeper who takes a pair of pruning clippers to the occasional fruit tree.

These were the resulting areas found in the search, under that heading (of what little I could find):

Landscaping
Turf management
Perennials
Poa control
Sports turf
Hardy roses
Small Tree care
Small Tree diseases
Pruning

Mmmmm... the truth comes out. It's a very small program for people who clip grass so that it looks nice when other's putt their balls across it. And for people who work with flowers, bushes, hedges, grasses, and small decorative trees.

I suppose expecting someone like that to know about proper LARGE tree practices and procedures would be a bit far-fetched, even if they do somehow have "arborist" in their "title".

My appologies to the groundskeeper.

Yes, I think true crown reduction is one of the most difficult aspects of pruning to properly pull off. It is difficult to do well, and therefore takes skill, knowledge, and training. Probably best left to those whose title is much more simply, "Arborist".

Eric Frei

In the spirit of "topping" then this tree had a "siding" too.

Around here I get phone calls all the time where people ask for a quote to give their trees a "hair cut".

Today driving around I spotted this semi-mature tallowood that received a "haircut".

These are also refered to as topping and hat racking. Like a hat rack on a coat stand etc.

At times I feel like the only idiot trying to persuade people otherwise. I also feel as though no customer knows anything else.

I have even had people ring and ask if I am an arborist coz they want their tree pruned properly. I get there and they ask for what you see below, but they insist they want it done properly.

I then ask them to expand on the properly part since they're the experts on tree pruning and care. Wow, some of the answers are just great, then I ask them what they do for a real job coz it sure aint trees. Ends up their occupation has nothing to do with ours. Then comes the 15 minutes of explanation, examples, and heck standing there I dont need pictures I just look up and down the street to find a topped tree, they're always around which in the customers eyes means it's OK to do it.

Anyway, all that sort of pruning is stupid, and if you are a home-owner reading this then get an arborist and ask them what is best and why, but get a good one or some fool will start to kill your tree with pruning or disfigure it.

This page of mine covers pruning in general and has some info on true pollarding.

We are all about trees - qualified tree pruning Brisbane

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Sean Freeman

Mario I'm really unsure what you are trying to say with your post? Perhaps you're trying to make say that in small confined landscapes you feel that clients that own trees and want them to fit into that space have the right to top them/severely reduce/drop crotch etc...Perhaps you're making a allusion to the dilemma BigShea13 outlined in his post about Utility Arb work and the conflict between electrical asset management/maintenance and tree management, I don't know....I'm not really sure what the tree species is that you're calling Austrlian Pine...Callitris columnar?

I know from having read your posts here and more so elsewhere, TB Arbsite and some of the garden forums in the US, that you know very well why topping is not acceptable practice, why it is substandard work in so many ways.
I also know that you take issue with the way in which some people carry out harsh reductions (going beyond the 25% rule) and call it pruning when it is to all intent and purpose topping/lopping, semantics to escape criticism.

I'm not going to jump on you for the post since I really don't understand just what exactly you are trying to say, I would like to know what the tree species was if you care to tell us, and why you felt it appropriate to carry out the work that you yourself describe in such a disparaging way.

TreeDimensional

Ekka, I think you missed the boat on your last picture. The "Beware of Dog" sign should be modified the read "Beware of Tree Butcher"

Yes we are preaching to the choir here, BUT if someone would like to assemble a link of "International Arborists Against Topping". I would gladly promote it. I hand out the ISA pamphlet "Why Topping Hurts Trees", and can honestly state that ALL my clients minds have been changed once they are enlightened.

Since the ISA isn't as International as Tree World is, I think a document produced by the members here would even drive the point home better.

Treelore

I could be wrong but my interpretation of his post was an Austrian Pine (Pinus nigra) was previously topped and it sounds as though Mdvaden was crown cleaning or reducing back to previous cuts. Difficult decisions need to be made when working on trees that have been butchered before you arrive.

quercus

I find this not amusing... Want to know why? Because your post has nothing to do with topping trees. In fact, it even has nothing to do with arborists out here... IT'S ABOUT TRIMMING A BUSH, about YOUR line of work and what is that? Landscaping...Landscapers tend to mutilate trees and turn them into bushes in every way possible, and that's what you've proven today.
Trimming a bush isn't topping mate, that's landscaping.
And if they were planted to become a bush even my grandma would know that they would have to be topped at some point.
You quote my post? I'm glad you did... But it says every ARBORIST will know the answer of every other ARBORIST.... So I don't expect you to know....
You are kinda luring me out of my tent aren't ya??? No worries, mate... I find THAT amusing.

quercus

Yes it is... Due to the previous topping of trees, sometimes it is necessary to top it again. The sprouts at the top are often not good attached and the top has rotted in severely.When that occurs and you let it be, then the attached branches (whom are attched to the live part of the rotten section, often break off under their own weight and decay gets bigger and bigger. So when it comes to safety, that has to be done.Why do we do this? Not because we want to, but because it extends the life of the butchered tree. Think of it as caring for a handicapped person. We care for them because otherwise they inflict harm to themselves unintentionally. That's exactly what we are doing when we are re-topping a tree.
The topping we are discussing, is actually taking a live normal top out of the tree.
mario's post is irrelevant on the matter... He's just taking a swing on me, because of the fact that I'm an arborist and he's a landscaper who wants to be an arborist.

Eric Frei

Please, ease up on the beating Mario up. Fact is all sorts of people, arborists and home-owners cut trees etc. Mario is a cert arb though.

I think Mario was sarcastically saying that cutting back to previous topped points (similar to pollards) is called reduction not topping.

He summarised with last line his take on reductions.

The debate about climbing arborists vs others is not for this thread.

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Eric Frei

There's an excellent power point show in this thread on it.

Anti Topping Campaign

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Treelore

Meanwhile MDVADEN has been beaten up unneccasarily because of a misconception so far in my understanding!!

groundpounder

If you are doing a crown reduction, the side branch that you are cutting back to that will assume the terminal role should be no smaller than 1/3 the diameter of the parent branch at the point where the cut is made. Any smaller and you are topping. If whatever the tree is conflictng with can not be moved, or if the reason for the crown reducton can not be satisfied by pruning using the "1/3 rule", the tree should be removed.

arborjockey

First pollarding isn't topping. Pollarding is anual reduction of sucker growth on a certain species. It starts gradual then is done every year as to keep wounds to a minimum. Cutting back a 1/3rd the size of the branch, this to can be over kill. It, like pollarding is dependent on species. 1/3rd dia. is used, in my opinion as a home owner rule. Keep in mind what tree your working in, are they vigerous growers that can compartmentalize? Or are they slow gowing and sensitive. Remember their are countless "rules of thumb" in the industry that are exceedingly general. Lilac can be cut tot he ground and come back but dont try this on everything. Very true Quercus, picking the stronest sappling and then subordinate the rest. Doing this every year until you have a descent (never capable of reaching 100%) brach union. Very time consuming and costly.lets hear it for those toppers nothing like ruining a tree for life.

Eric Frei

I have a blurb on pollarding on this page at the bottom.

We are all about trees - qualified tree pruning Brisbane

It's one thing to reduce 1 branch for whatever reason to a smaller branch, whether that be 1/3, 1/2 or 1/8 the dia however an entire canopy? If the tree was large and mature prior it would certainly do damage.

If you have a species that wants to grow 50' tall and for some crazy reason you want to hold it at 25' then you're in trouble. The worst is letting it get to 50' then cutting it back to 25'

About the only way you's contain the tree to 25' is start cutting it at 25.1' with cuts in the young juvenile tips. Inevitably it would become a like a hedge and sheared, trees only grow on the tips or ends usually.

So right tree right place. In the event of having to reduce for whatever reasons then reduction to target points is desire-able, however it will impact on tree health for sure. Trees are different, climates are different. Do it in a drought here and the tree can die, do it to a poinciana and it will rot.

Sadly, you see topping too often, it's absurd frankly, and people have some silly reasons for it including a phobia of tall trees. But I have noticed as time goes by people are now thinking 40' is tall for a tree. yet say 25 years ago not many worried about a 40' tree. In areas like the gold Coast a lot of the elderly think anything higher than the gutter is big and dangerous ... phobic reactions really, maybe they best see a shrink not an arborist.

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bigshea13

what the hell is this q? on one hand your saying under no circumstances and on the other you say well of its been done before do it again...... and think of the trees as handycaps. are the trees only to be seen as handycaps under your terms. the way i see it there are numerous applications for this train of thought. many circumstances for topping and drastic crown reduction lurk round. overhead wires, a better view,fear of the tree flopping due to wind to name a few. im not by any means trying to say im an advocate for either action , what i am saying is that there are occassions that arise that leave you with no other plausable alternative. ive seen some of mv s pics of his work on other sites and let me be the first to tell ya that he is as every bit as much an arborist as the rest....now lets fight over what an arborist is.....again! if its can fall over on ya and kill ya its a tree. ever heard that one. if your saying that because he may only trimm friut trees hes not an arb then maybe you clowns need to look up the def of symboisis. being a good arb means being well rounded in all aspect of the field not just an expert in one
one more thing...if you guys have NEVER had to do a MAJOR crown reduction for any reason your application in the game isnt very diverse.

windthrown

Well, many street trees here in the West US are topped, in the name of pollarding, as my sycamore tree was at my house in CA. Typically they will cut well over 40% or more of height and leave the stumps to grow back again. I have seen it done on sycamore, London plain, black walnut, maple, and several other species. They basically cut them and then come back every few years and cut them back to the stubs, or cut new stumps. Now, there are also old estates that I have seen that have real pollarded trees in them, expecially some of the old Spanish villas and older Italian houses. Those are pollarded low and when young, as Eric has on his site.

Therrin

If it can fall on you and kill you, then it's a tree. If you work on such trees, are you an arborist?

I've dismantled Pines that were 165ft+, done crown reductions on elms, poplars, birch, ash and others. Thinned and dead-wooded alot of stuff. Worked on big trees, small trees, suggested the planting of trees, planted them, removed trees, chipped trees, treated trees, etc.

After all that, I still refuse to call myself an arborist. Who among you would? I am not certified, and so I am not an arborist. I think certification is required.


So far, noone has voted that they would top trees, on the poll. Except that several of you are leaning in that direction, you just aren't truthfull about it.

Furthermore.... check out the Wikipedia page on "pruning". Mvaden's link is at the bottom, he supports the content of that page, and if you'll notice, there is a very supportive clause for topping:

This states that topping is severe but ACCEPTED as a form of PRUNING. Mvaden is an additive part of this page, with a link at the bottom supporting the page's contents. Topping is downplayed as correctly being used on "very young trees", though still referred to as "topping" and still being said that it can be done correctly.

Therefore, there is no argument that Mvaden supports the TOPPING of trees.

windthrown

Well, I am not a certified or licensed arborist (no such thing when I had a landscaping business in CA at the time), but I did get certified and licensed in horticulture and landscape design back then, and I have a recent certificate in silviculture. Different scale than arborist, taking care of stands, but it is all about trees just the same. I take care of large stands of trees now (85 acres here, and on some larger parcels of land that I own elsewhere). I do not climb that much any more, and I did not specialize in trees in the horticulture business with my brother. However, we pruned and felled a hell of a lot of trees. Monterey Pines and coastal live oaks, especially, and I did a large amount of fruit tree pruning there (for both ornamental and fruiting).

My point being that being licensed or certified is not the holy grail on the path to arborist glory. We span the globe here, and having a certificate or license here does not mean the same thing down under, or in Europe, or anywhere else. Certification varies quite a lot by country, state and region. I have seen licensed arborists in San Diego absolutely DESTROY every fruit spur on a stone and pome fruit orchard. They pruned them like lemons... wrong way to do that. I also know some people that have never been certified, or licensed, but they can prune an orchard to perfection, or prune a whole town of street trees and do it right. In other words, certificatin does not always mean great quality in terms of pruning trees, and not being certified does not always mean you are an idiot that does not know a leaf from a root. And there are circumstances that are outside of the typical suburban and urban settign, as well as outside the typical forest plantation setting where terms, knowledge, and things like arborist licenses get blurred.

For example, here we have 20-30 species of native trees, and we are doing a lot of thinning, harvesting and slective cutting for a variety of situations on these properties. Currently we are thinning a restoring a 4 acre oak grove that is over 400 years old. The grove itself is a remnant of the Indian tribes that lived here (the Yoncalla tribe of the greater Calapooya Native American Indians). They burned the fields around here in late summer months to keep open areas for hunting game. Since the last select cut up there 20 years ago, the grand and doug firs have invaded and are beginning to crown crowd the trees for light. They are also taking away the fire resistance of the oaks; if a fire were to come through the firs would go up like torches and burn the oak canopy. So we are removing all the firs and removing the dead oaks and doing some oak thinning.

Yah, it is not pruning in the sence of an arborist, but... it is still pruning and selective thinning, on a large scale. And for unusual reasons and purposes. But this is one of the few remaining stands of this type around here. These are California Black Oaks, at the northern most region that they grow. We have had to come up with our own requirements, debate with the forestry guy that is doing the Rx for us (for property tax reasons in this state) and go against the 'plant it all in Doug fir' mentality that pervades this area by all the local timber professionals. I mean, we could have felled all the oaks and cut them into firewood, and moved the area into high value commercial fir production, just like everything else around here. And I mean everything: there are stands for hundreds of square miles around here that are nothing but Douglas fir trees in various stages of the clear-cutting cycle. Trees here are just long term crops. And in that relm, tree topping here is a part of the felling technique during cutting.

Anyway, what were we talking about???

TREE-SURFER

Therrin, the whole point that I started this thread, is indeed, the fact that some authorities, accept topping as a form of pruning. Some do it, most do not.
I would rather hope that a lot of people here would vote, (truthfully), and explain their reasons for and against TOPPING and publish the findings (if people here that voted, would give their permission to do so, and give these findings to the local authorities who can have it banned.

__________________

The Aerial Arborist
Isle of Man Tree Surgeon| All Aspects of Tree Work
What experts say about TOPPING

Eric Frei

What do you mean here, that if you cant fell a tree whole you climb up and take the top out then fell whats' left?

I think that is what you mean but the thread is aimed at topping and leaving what's left in an amenity tree situation (excludes fruit trees and forestry etc, only for ornamental trees).

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