Topping, Pollarding, or what??

climbingmonkey24 said:
Looked at these trees this morning.

Client wants to cut the growth back about to where the bigger main branches end. You might be able to tell it has been done before.

Instinctively my first thought is “topping”but I also know that aggressively pruning like this is a technique some people use.

As far as I know, the client used to cut it back themselves but hasn’t been able to because it’s gotten to be a bit too much. So my question is, is this something you’d do or do you think it has gotten too big for that kind of pruning to actually be beneficial.

They also said that they want to make the trees shorter to hopefully make them become more wide…

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Personally I’d call that ‘retopping’ it’s not legit pollarding and it’s more of a hybrid management somewhere between topping and pollarding.
Wait till risk of the last hard frost has passed. Or better yet push for a removal/replacement strategy
 
I already got the contract and the job is set to be done towards the end of February / early March which is what they asked me to do. I wrote everything down in the estimate about how there are risks to the tree, that it would require continual maintenance for it to be effective, etc. They thanked me for my notes when they emailed me back telling me they wanted to move ahead with the project.

I’m not sure it would be wise to go back now and start advocating for removal / replacement, although I suppose I could find a way to mention it if I really wanted to without coming across like I’m trying to steer the client one way. Plus who knows, maybe they would take my advice and start caring for it on a regular basis.
 
What I was wondering is when making the final cuts, would you just do one flush cut at the “head” area where the stems are growing out of, or make an individual cut for each stem?
 
I've always tried to cut each stem individually, finish cut above the branch collar. The times I've done these, trying to cut small stems all at once, say with a top handle, ripped the stems more than cut them cleanly. It would be like trying to trim a hedge with a chainsaw, which can leave a ratty mess sometimes. Have a look at Climbing Arborist dot com on Youtube - Dan has a video showing pollarding of larger stems. Cheers.
 
climbingmonkey24 said:
I already got the contract and the job is set to be done towards the end of February / early March which is what they asked me to do. I wrote everything down in the estimate about how there are risks to the tree, that it would require continual maintenance for it to be effective, etc. They thanked me for my notes when they emailed me back telling me they wanted to move ahead with the project.

I’m not sure it would be wise to go back now and start advocating for removal / replacement, although I suppose I could find a way to mention it if I really wanted to without coming across like I’m trying to steer the client one way. Plus who knows, maybe they would take my advice and start caring for it on a regular basis.
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“You know one thing you could do, is keep maintaining this tree for a few more years, this will give you the benefit of keeping a tree in this spot while we plant a replacement. Once this replacement gets to a substantial size we can just remove this tree”
 
ghostice said:
I've always tried to cut each stem individually, finish cut above the branch collar. The times I've done these, trying to cut small stems all at once, say with a top handle, ripped the stems more than cut them cleanly. It would be like trying to trim a hedge with a chainsaw, which can leave a ratty mess sometimes. Have a look at Climbing Arborist dot com on Youtube - Dan has a video showing pollarding of larger stems. Cheers.
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Well that’s what I was thinking. Basically when done you’d be left with a head that has a bunch of pruning cuts where each stem was.
 
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