Caught myself topping a silver maple at the wrong cut and a homeowner's question snapped me out of it

Quinn Carr · 2026-10-20T15:45:04.567286+00:00

Last week I was doing a cleanup prune on a silver maple in Boise and this homeowner asked me why I was cutting back to the old stub instead of the branch collar. I gave her some lazy answer about clearance, but it bugged me all the way home. Pulled out my copy of the ANSI pruning guide that night and sure enough, I'd been leaving stubs on every reduction cut for probably 3 seasons. Went back Saturday and re-cut the 5 worst stubs properly with my Silky, and the collar wood looked way cleaner. Anybody else get humbled by a homeowner who actually read the manual?

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Caught myself topping a silver maple at the wrong cut and a homeowner's question snapped me out of it | Arborists - Thought Shares