Topping, Pollarding, or what??

climbingmonkey24 · 2026-01-21T14:46:44+0000

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…

climbingmonkey24 · 2026-01-21T14:47:35+0000

Muggs · 2026-01-21T14:57:48+0000

Pollarding is very species-dependent as far as how they respond and tolerate it. That almost looks like a Norway Maple?

climbingmonkey24 · 2026-01-21T15:01:16+0000

Muggs said:
Pollarding is very species-dependent as far as how they respond and tolerate it. That almost looks like a Norway Maple?

I believe it is a Norway maple.

ghostice · 2026-01-21T15:01:23+0000

When pollarding perhaps advise HO that they're pretty much buying into a yearly or bi-annual thing if they want to keep the height down (say for sun). This growth is big enough it should be chainsaw-able to form a "knuckle" eventually with continued pruning. I've seen cuts done down to some small stubs and also right down to growth collar, but I wouldn't make any flush cuts. Alternately (in Europe) I've seen the pollarded trees trained into long upright growth seemed like over years of pruning, to where the "shoots" are about the same height as the trunk. Assume this was done to limit width of the tree in a municipal setting.
And species do differ in their tolerance to pollarding/ coppicing but since you're presented with the thing in the first place it's a toss to me. I've seen pollarded green ash and they're thriving, but typically it's done here on willows and such. Just my two cents though. Cheers.