PSA: My old boss told me to never top a tree, and a job last month proved him right

He drilled it into my head for years that topping just creates weak, dangerous growth. I took a call to clean up a silver maple in Springfield that another crew had topped about three years ago. The regrowth was a mess of crowded, poorly attached limbs, and we found two major cracks starting at the old cuts. It took us a full day just to make it safe again, which was way more work than a proper reduction cut would have been. Has anyone else had to fix a topped tree that turned into a bigger hazard than the original issue?

3 comments

3 Comments

bennett.evan14d ago

We had a topped willow oak in Decatur that sprouted like 30 water shoots, each one a potential failure point. Took us half a day just to drop all that brittle junk. The homeowner was mad at US for the cost, not the hacks who butchered it years before.

the_taylor14d ago

Are water shoots really that big of a deal though?

linda_dixon4914d ago

Maybe the homeowner just saw a big bill and didn't know the history. @bennett.evan, those water shoots are a pain, but from their view they just paid someone to cut a bunch of small branches.