Okay Noel,
Sorry for the 'condescending tone'.
Not because I care about hurting your feelings, but if I have any hope of changing someone from topping, I should present my case without pissing someone off. Being condescending or attacking just makes people stick even more to their way of doing things. I did not think I was condescending though. Just to the point.
My 'tone' was such because I'm really sick of this War of topping vs. proper trimming. And when I heard that there were arborist on the buzz saying that topping was okay in some circumstances, it made me a bit angry.
How can we change the publics view on topping if you tell one customer (that has a Norway Maple) that you won't top it because it's bad to do, then just down the street from him, you topped 20 bradford pears for some neighborhood association? What does that show to the public?
If you are truely doing crown reductions, where that everything you cut back was back to a limb that was at least 1/3 diameter of what you were cutting off, then fine.
But since you are throwing in the word, 'severe' crown reduction, it makes me suspect that it isn't a crown reduction to ANSI standards.
-Oh, you just posted pictures while I was writing this. Thanks. Okay, no, those are not crown-reductions. You're cutting small diameter, but it's still topping, not a crown reduction. They won’t react as bad as a larger diameter topping, but it will stimulate fast thick growth. It is topping, whether you round it off or what.-
“we are talking about overgrown, falling apart, previously topped trees that the customer wants to find a way to keep.”
Okay, in that case, I give them several options, have us do a thinning and crown reduction (a reduction to ANSI standards) and possible cabling or bolting if bad crotches or do a tree removal (most recommended). Or, they can call another tree company that does topping. I always tell them, I will not let our company be seen topping trees, we will NOT do it.
I think a proffesional arborist should stick to proper trimming practices. No matter what the specie, what the tree has gone through in the past. Let the hillbilly tree service be seen topping it if that's the only thing the customer will have done to it.
Try to push the customer to removal and plant a decent specie tree. One way to do this is quote a price on the proper thinning and crown reduction, which is generally very expensive when trying to 'correct' a previously topped tree. Then show them a removal quote is that generally much less. Having a choice like that, they often decide to go with the removal quote even though they thought they would not consider it.
I really shouldn’t be spending time on this today, but I’ll look for some pictures to contribute too. Thanks for posting yours.
