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standard practice around here. now is the time to start tho - i've had people w/ leyland hedges 40 ft tall and never "hedged" decide suddenly that they should be a 15 ft hedge. not work i would do. the little guys tho respond well to it. i did work on a 40 ft leyland removal once between houses where the tree had just suddenly decided to fall over, so that's a valid concern i think. piece of crap tree. waayyy to fast growing for its own good, if y'ask me (not that anyone did). fyi, i'm as rabid an anti-topper as most anyone you'd meet. apple trees don't count. english laurel doesn't count. leyland cypress don't count. holly doesn't count unless it's a super nice unmolested holly that has room to be its wild self.
my 2 cents
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I'm with Kathy on these choices as exceptions to the Topping/ Heading cuts. They are definitely appropriate for a specific purpose, species specific. This is where it isn't "tree topping" to make 'em safer.
Apples-training
laurel-hedging
leyland cypress-hedging
holly-hedging, (hollies seem like a nuisance invasive plant to me, ftr.)
Just the other day I was bidding a job which included 3 western redcedars with dead tops near a 3 year old house. The dead tops were a small to medium percentage of each trees' canopies.
I suggested that, with the powerline next to the tree and 2 young kids playing beneath the cedar in the new lawn, we should remove the dead wood from the tree. She kept using the "your going to top the cedars" in our discussion. The Last thing that I need is for her to go back to work at this one state environmental agency, and telling people that I'd "topped" her cedar trees to make it safe for her kids.
As for people's concerns for the trees, the original call came as a result of an alder that broke in half and almost hit the deck. Water view house on Puget Sound, so lots of glass within the deck walls and the whole back of the house.
No Pre-Construction Tree Evaluation. They deeply trenched the storm drain only 5' feet from a 20" western red cedar!
Alders already in bad shape leaning toward the house, deck, lawn
Excavation damage to other trees.
Hopefully, we'll be able to salvage the larger cedar with dead top for the longterm. Decompaction, mulching, irrigation.
Planting Plan for establishing replacement trees, with future removal of damaged trees over the next couple of years in mind (keep an easy drop zone open without having to rig anything, with no damage to replacement trees). Smaller cedars with larger portion of crown dieback will be intended as funky wildlife trees rather than plain removal. They'll be about 15' tall after the deadwooding.
