Why not to top trees
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- Location
- Retired in Minneapolis
This has been posted before but it seems like a good place to share it again.
Punish Your Trees If They Dare Grow Tall
Lewiston Tribune 3/27/90
As a resident of Lewiston-Clarkston — the tree-butchering capital of America — I have come to realize that some trees are too tall.
They deserve to be punished for that. If a tree won't keep its place you have to cut it down to size.
Or so I gather after 25 years in this town. For some odd reason, the people of this community prune their trees more severely than people do in other communities. People here plant a tree, water it, fertilize it — and if it dares to grow, they'll cut the top off it.
But why? Where did this town get its abnormal fear of tall trees?
That question occurred to me again the other day in a Clarkston Heights yard, My host pointed out a blue spruce with its pointy top whacked off and complained about the tree's stubborn tendency to grow, "I have to keep cutting it back," he complained.
"Why?" I asked?
"It keeps getting too tall," he said.
"Too tall for what?" I asked, sincerely puzzled. There was nothing above the top of that tree but sky — no roofline was being crowded, no power line. The tree could grow five miles and encounter nothing.
"It's just getting too tall," he said, "I have to keep cutting it back so it doesn't get out of hand.
"What does "out of hand" mean? I don't know but I have heard that expression more than once around here: "I gotta prune that tree before it gets outta hand."
I could understand that if the tree is over the hill, has terminal crotch rot and is about to fall on the drive. way where you park your cherished 1988 Yugo.
I could understand pruning off a limb if it is growing through the rumpus room.
And I could certainly understand thinning some of the limbs out of a tree. We all need our hair trimmed, But that doesn't mean we need our head cut off.
Nonetheless, the people of this town will chop the top off a tree even if it is out in the middle of an acreage a quarter mile from the nearest building, threatening nothing but low flying jet planes. I think people here believe any tree that gets too tall will turn mean and roam the neighborhood killing dogs getting even for past insults.
Sometimes I fear the people around here have small horizons. They don't know how high the sky is. They think a tree that gets too tall will poke a hole in the sky and let in all that cold air from outer space. Some fool in Lewiston Orchards let a poplar get out of hand year before last and half the pipes in the valley were frozen.
Actually, poplars and other fast growing trees may have something to do with it,.A lot of the people who settle here — myself included — are from families that moved here from the Midwest. Our families came out of that region in the era before the plant magicians had developed so many trees that would tolerate frigid temperatures and dust bowls and Republicanism and other extremes of nature common to that part of the country.
That explains why there are still older people around to this day who regard rhubarb and gooseberries as fruit. And that explains why there are still people around who will actually cat green tomato relish. They've never heard of ripe tomatoes.
The choice of cheap shade trees was limited — just a few large, rambling, fast-growing trees like poplars and maples and black locusts. You could plant them next to the house in April and by August They would have grown 150 feet and fallen through the roof of the house during one of the weekly tornadoes. Or they would have got hit by the daily lightning storm.
When you grow up in a land like that, you learn real fast not to let your trees get out of hand. That's how so many of us here came to fear tall tree.
Other towns thin their trees. This is a basic redneck town. Most of the men and some of the women have crew cuts, We like our trees the same way.
And if the rest of you don't agree, write a letter to the editor, however, if it's loo long, we'll cut it. We don't want people like you getting out of hand.
Punish Your Trees If They Dare Grow Tall
Lewiston Tribune 3/27/90
As a resident of Lewiston-Clarkston — the tree-butchering capital of America — I have come to realize that some trees are too tall.
They deserve to be punished for that. If a tree won't keep its place you have to cut it down to size.
Or so I gather after 25 years in this town. For some odd reason, the people of this community prune their trees more severely than people do in other communities. People here plant a tree, water it, fertilize it — and if it dares to grow, they'll cut the top off it.
But why? Where did this town get its abnormal fear of tall trees?
That question occurred to me again the other day in a Clarkston Heights yard, My host pointed out a blue spruce with its pointy top whacked off and complained about the tree's stubborn tendency to grow, "I have to keep cutting it back," he complained.
"Why?" I asked?
"It keeps getting too tall," he said.
"Too tall for what?" I asked, sincerely puzzled. There was nothing above the top of that tree but sky — no roofline was being crowded, no power line. The tree could grow five miles and encounter nothing.
"It's just getting too tall," he said, "I have to keep cutting it back so it doesn't get out of hand.
"What does "out of hand" mean? I don't know but I have heard that expression more than once around here: "I gotta prune that tree before it gets outta hand."
I could understand that if the tree is over the hill, has terminal crotch rot and is about to fall on the drive. way where you park your cherished 1988 Yugo.
I could understand pruning off a limb if it is growing through the rumpus room.
And I could certainly understand thinning some of the limbs out of a tree. We all need our hair trimmed, But that doesn't mean we need our head cut off.
Nonetheless, the people of this town will chop the top off a tree even if it is out in the middle of an acreage a quarter mile from the nearest building, threatening nothing but low flying jet planes. I think people here believe any tree that gets too tall will turn mean and roam the neighborhood killing dogs getting even for past insults.
Sometimes I fear the people around here have small horizons. They don't know how high the sky is. They think a tree that gets too tall will poke a hole in the sky and let in all that cold air from outer space. Some fool in Lewiston Orchards let a poplar get out of hand year before last and half the pipes in the valley were frozen.
Actually, poplars and other fast growing trees may have something to do with it,.A lot of the people who settle here — myself included — are from families that moved here from the Midwest. Our families came out of that region in the era before the plant magicians had developed so many trees that would tolerate frigid temperatures and dust bowls and Republicanism and other extremes of nature common to that part of the country.
That explains why there are still older people around to this day who regard rhubarb and gooseberries as fruit. And that explains why there are still people around who will actually cat green tomato relish. They've never heard of ripe tomatoes.
The choice of cheap shade trees was limited — just a few large, rambling, fast-growing trees like poplars and maples and black locusts. You could plant them next to the house in April and by August They would have grown 150 feet and fallen through the roof of the house during one of the weekly tornadoes. Or they would have got hit by the daily lightning storm.
When you grow up in a land like that, you learn real fast not to let your trees get out of hand. That's how so many of us here came to fear tall tree.
Other towns thin their trees. This is a basic redneck town. Most of the men and some of the women have crew cuts, We like our trees the same way.
And if the rest of you don't agree, write a letter to the editor, however, if it's loo long, we'll cut it. We don't want people like you getting out of hand.
- Location
- NW Indiana
That's a good one Tom
We just pruned two Silver Maples this last week that had been topped a few years back. They are young enough that I hope to get them to recover. When I was talking to the homeowner, (who I think had the topping done) He was afraid that I took too much out. He really liked the shade these trees provided and was worried that they would not be thick and full enough to provide it. I tried to explain what was going to happen if he would of let them go, but he did not want to hear it.
Has anyone heard of using growth regulators to help topped trees?
Has anyone heard of using growth regulators to help topped trees?
TheTreeSpyder
Branched out member
- Location
- Florida>>> USA
That is a great view to share. i'd like to download possibly to assemble for my site etc. at some point in the to-do file.
