Jerry, I've often wondered if the trees on the West Coast actually heal over faster and can deal with it a little better; after a topping cut or break and maybe you guys don't see it as severly as we do.
Plus you have more conifers and I imagine they don't rot and don't resprout like decids. (see attached picture of a Norway Maple that was topped years ago and had to be taken down before it fell on the house, owners were very sad to hear me say over and over again than IT NEEDS to be taken down).
The picture I posted originally to start this thread, was of a silver maple. We saw it in the morning and it had never been trimmed before.
They topped it pretty bad. Not half way, but probably took a third height out of it and paid no attention to branch structure.
Silver maple in my opion are actualy very elastic and strong. NOT, if they grow in a tight V crotch -that's different. But I find silver maple to be more elastic and can with stand wind better than most maples.
Now, once they have been topped, they sprout out like mad from the tips. And those size cuts will definitely get rot and start hollowing out.
In 3 years it will be back to it's old height but much weaker.
In about 5 years many sprouts will start dying due to the thickness and lack of sun.
In about 7 to 10 years, those long thin sprouts; now sizable material, will start snapping, in half, or breakk off at the hollowed out stub.
Someone or some company that does indiscriminant cutting of a tree; that causes the tree to go severely down in health and structural strength in the near future is what I would call a HACK job.
Topping is talked about a lot in the tree world and pretty much anyone that is in the business of tree work has heard that it is the wrong thing to do. They just choose to do it anyway.
I do believe there are plenty of uneducated homeowners that do not know that topping is wrong.
Why would many homeowners think that it is wrong when they still see it done all around them.
Topping spreads through a neighborhood like wildfire.
People don't notice a tree when it's been properly pruned. But they sure notice topping and they think, hmmm, maybe our tree is getting too big too. Maybe we should have ours done just like the Smiths did down the street.
So, they call a few topping guys and lets say they call me.
The topping guys say right away, sure, we'll do that for ya.
One gives a price of $200 and another $280 and both agreed the tree was too tall.
I come in and give a price of $800 to properly thin the tree, a slight crown reduction, deadwood pruning, elevating and trim for house clearance. Then I have to spend about an HOUR educating them on why not to top their tree. I draw sketches, I give them papers from ISA and such saying the same thing I just told them. I try to convince them, that in the long run, they will be spending less money and less maintanance on this tree if they just have it done the right way. Some I convince, some I don't. And with the economy bad right now, cheaper is looking better more and more.
So it does effect MY BUSINESS AND MY LIVELY HOOD and that's why I give a crap about what the other companies are doing!!!!!!!!
Here's another way it can affect me too. Lets say the people made a mistake once and had their tree topped. They learned since then, that is was a mistake. This time they want it done right. Well, it likely will never be right again, but we can do our best. I then have to climb through that mess of a tree, tie in to multiple points because what grew back doesn't have a single stem strong enough to hold my body weight. I'm cursing a swearing the whole time at who ever was the person that originally topped this thing. Then after lots of hard work, I step back on the ground and look at the final product, and it still kinda looks like crap. I don't like that, I want to walk back from a tree when I'm done and say, "wow, what a nice lookin' tree".
And lets not worry so much about company names getting posted and such.
I'm sure that there are some line clearance guys on here that got a little worried and some of you other guys did too.
These responses aren't written in stone you know, and Tom or Mark will delete them if someone gets out of hand slamming and slandering a company I'm sure.
So lets just carry on this conversation.
But I do feel that if you hack up a tree, you should be afraid. You should be afraid that someone that knows better might see you. You should be afraid that that customer might get educated and then get pissed at what you did. You should be afraid that someday that tree might fail due to the rot you caused and hold you responsible.
