What's wrong with topping?
The misguided practice of tree topping (also referred to as stubbing,
dehorning, pollarding, heading, and by several other euphemisms) has
risen to crisis proportions nationally over the last decade. Topping
has become the urban forest's major threat, dramatically shortening
the lifespan of trees and creating hazardous trees in high-traffic areas.
The importance of trees to the urban and global ecology is only now
becoming fully known and appreciated. This dawning has not yet
been accompanied by adequate public education and sound public policy
to ensure tree survival and our own safety.
DON'T TURN YOUR VALUABLE COMMUNITY ASSETS INTO LEGAL, AESTHETIC AND
ECONOMIC LIABILITIES! PLEASE READ AND CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING.
1. IT WON'T WORK.
Topping won't work to keep trees small. After a deciduous tree is
topped, its growth rate increases. It grows back rapidly in an
attempt to replace its missing leaf area. It needs all of its
leaves so that it can manufacture food for the trunk and roots. It
won't slow down until it reaches about the same size it was before it
was topped. It takes at maximum a few years before your tree
returns to near its original size.
An exception to the grow-back-to-size rule comes if you damage a tree's
health so it hasn't the strength to re-establish itself. It is, in
effect, dying and will continue on a downward spiral for years. Topping
can't make a significant size difference-not for long. The species or
type of tree you have determines its size. A dogwood or Japanese
maple may grow from 10 to 30 feet in its life, an oak or an ash from
10 to 90 feet. You can't "stop" trees with topping. If you
succeed, you have killed them.
2. IT'S EXPENSIVE.
A topped tree must be done and re-done every few years-and eventually must
be removed when it it dies or the owner gives up. Each time a branch
is cut, numerous long, skinny young shoots (called suckers or watersprouts)
grow rapidly back to replace it. They must be cut and recut, but they
always regrow the next year making the job exponentially more difficult.
Much like the many-headed Hydra snake that Hercules battled, people create
maintenence monsters in their back yards. A properly pruned tree
stays "done" longer, since the work does not stimulate an upsurge of
regrowth. Proper pruning actually improves the health and beauty
of a tree, costing you less in the long run.
Topping also reduces the appraised value of your tree. A tree, like
any landscape amenity, adds to the value of your property. Appraisers
subtract hundreds of dollars from the value of a tree when it's been topped
(using the International Society of Arboriculture's guidelines for
evaluation). You can even sue a tree company for wrongfully topping a tree.
3. IT'S UGLY.
The sight of a topped tree is offensive to many people. The freshly
sawed-off tree limbs are reminiscent of arm or leg amputations. And
the freshly-sawed look is just the beginning of the eyesore; the worst is
yet to come, as the tree regrows a witch's broom of ugly, straight suckers
The natural beauty of the tree's crown is a function of the uninterrupted
taper from the trunk to ever finer and more delicate branches, and the
regular division of the branches. Arborists consider the topping of
some trees a criminal act, since a tree's 90-year achievement of natural
beauty can be destroyed in a couple of hours.
Topping destroys the winter silhouette of a tree. The regrowth of
suckers or shoots will bloom poorly, if at all. Some trees will
reestablish themselves after many years-but by then they will be the
same size as before. Many topped trees are considered a total loss.
4. IT'S DANGEROUS.
According to Dr. Alex Shigo, world renowned scientist and author on
the subject of arboriculture (trees), topping is the most serious
injury you can inflict upon your tree. Severe topping and repeat
topping can set up internal columns of rotten wood, the ill effect of
which may show up years later in conjunction with a drought or other stress.
Ironically, many people top their trees because they think it will
make them safer. Topping creates hazardous trees. In many
cities, topping is banned because of the public safety factor and the
potential for lawsuits.
Topping creates a hazardous tree in four ways:
IT ROTS. Topping opens the tree up to an invasion of rotting
organisms. A tree can defend itself from rot when side branches
are removed, but it has a hard time walling off the pervasive rot to
which a topping cut subjects it. Rotted individual limbs-or the
entire tree-may fail as a result, often years later.
- IT STARVES. Very simply, a tree's leaves manufacture its food.
Repeated removal of the tree's leaves-its food source-literally starves
the tree. This makes it susceptible to secondary diseases such as
root rot---a common cause of failing trees.
- WEAK LIMBS. New limbs made from the sucker or shoot regrowth
are weakly attached and break easily in wind or snow storms-even many
years later when they are large and heavy. A regrown limb never
has the structural integrity of the original.
- INCREASED WIND RESISTANCE. The thick regrowth of suckers or
sprouts resulting from topping make the tree top-heavy and more likely
to catch the wind. This increases the chance of blow-down in a
storm. Selectively-thinned trees allow the wind to pass through
the branches. It's called "taking the sail out" of a tree.
5. MAKES YOU LOOK BAD.
Topping makes you appear to be a cruel or foolish person. Your friends
know you better. But the more your neighbors come to understand
topping for what it is, the lower you will fall in their esteem. You may
top a tree to create a water view, but you should know that you have some
friends and neighbors-who probably won't say so because they are being
tactful-who see a view of a butchered tree with water in the background.
Still not convinced? Here are even more reasons:
"How to Avoid Being Clipped by a Tree Trimmer", Steve Sandfort and
Edwin C. Butcher, Flower and Garden Magazine, April 1988
"Topping – the Most Expensive Part of Pruning", Alden Kelley, Arbor Age,
"Warning – Topping is Hazardous to Your Tree's Health", C.A. Kalser et al,
Journal of Arboriculture, February 1986
"Are you a Candidate for a Lawsuit?", Randall S. Stamen, Arbor Age,
July 1994 (do not include ads or significant new case law)
Letter to PlantAmnesty from Jon Krupnick, Attorney At Law, December 26,
1989, Barcia case
"The Myth of Tree Topping", Linda Chalker-Scott, Washington State
Nursery & Landscape Association B&B Newsletter, Sept. 2003
"Saving Trees and Views", Sunset Magazine, May 1989
"Conifer Topping – It May be Common, But is it Right?", John Hushagen,
Tree Care Industry Magazine, July 1992