City of Hickory Treasured Trees

Landscape Services Department, PO Box 398, 1441 9th Ave NE, Hickory, North Carolina 28603
phone: 828-323-7500        email: TTeague@ci.hickory.nc.us

Help Stop Topping

DON'T BE A VICTIM! HELP STOP HICKORY'S TREE TOPPING EPIDEMIC!
Think about it ... If you were an unethical tree trimmer, wouldn't you recommend a practice that would guarantee you future income for additional tree trimming and eventual tree removal?
	No tree PROFESSIONAL ever recommended topping.

TREE TOPPING or HOW TO CREATE A DISASTER

Paul Hetzler, Community Forestry Program
Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County, NY

Tree topping is one subject I can really get worked up about. Topping is unprofessional, unsightly, outrageous, immoral, unethical, and possibly contributes to rainy weekends, bad breath, parking tickets, baldness and tooth decay. It is unthinkable, unbelievable, wrong, horrible, awful, bad, yucko, blecch! Any questions? Oh, exactly what is topping? Just a minute. Mmph- there, that’s better. Had to wipe the foam off my mouth.

OK, tree topping is the cutting back of large portions of a tree’s canopy to stubs or inappropriately small branches. Variably known as heading, dehorning, hat racking and tipping, it has not been an accepted practice for at least 25 years. It is the most harmful practice visited on living trees by human beings. (All right, besides cutting the whole thing down). Topping is believed to have started as a method of clearing utility lines. This practice was perceived by some as an appropriate way to reduce a tree’s height. (Possibly this was encouraged by line clearing employees who went on to become "tree experts" willing to do topping.) Thus topping jumped from industrial clearing to residential "care".

Topping shortens a tree temporarily, but does not alter those pesky DNA strands which just insist the tree grow to its normal height. So, the tree re- grows as programmed, but for various reasons the new top or branch that develops is much weaker, and is more weakly attached to the parent wood than the original part was. Then the tree that’s left standing (the "remnant tree") begins to decay from the topping cut down. A column of decay develops in the center of the tree which will eventually become as wide as the cut was. Imagine slicing a building in half, destabilizing the bottom part, then rebuilding the top with vastly inferior materials. Recipe for disaster? You bet! As the cheap imitation (re- grown) parts get bigger, the point at which they are attached becomes increasingly decayed. It may take as many as forty or fifty years, or as few as five or ten, but as the bumper sticker says, "failure happens". Once the disastrous long term effects (including long term liability) of topping became widely known, it was abandoned by tree care professionals.

Not only does topping create weak new growth, it also severely weakens the remnant tree. The tree has to take "money out of the bank" (starch out of storage) to re-grow at a time when much of its stored starches have been lost by topping. Trees normally spend their energy reserves on things like making defensive chemicals to protect themselves from diseases and pests. When they are too energy deficient to do this, the result is a tree which is more vulnerable to decay, disease, and insects.

The difference between looking at a naturally formed tree and a topped tree is like the difference between looking at classic architecture and a pile of construction rubble. Trees generally add to property value, up to about twenty percent. But a tree that is disfigured from topping can actually decrease property value, and possibly the value of neighboring properties as well.

If a short tree is desired, a short species must be planted. However, there is an acceptable practice called crown reduction pruning which can reduce the height of most trees in a way that does not harm them. Crown reduction takes a lot more skill than topping, and can reduce a tree’s height by a maximum of about twenty five percent. Of course, the tree will eventually grow back to original height, but it will not be the hulking wretch that topping would produce. Crown reduction works best on deciduous trees.

To address concerns about a tall tree blowing over, there is a practice which can lessen that risk. Crown thinning is the selective pruning of branches throughout the canopy to reduce wind resistance. Again, this takes more skill and judgment than topping. A tree company that tops trees probably lacks the expertise to perform the correct procedures, and should be avoided. In fact, the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA), a research and education association of tree care professionals, advises the public that a tree company which advertises topping should NOT be hired, for any work, period.

Tree topping is probably the best way to turn a normally docile, peace- loving tree into a snarling killer, or at the very least a snarling unsightly nuisance and potential legal liability.