Frustrated seeing everyone top their oak trees

I was out on a job in Phoenix last Wednesday and walked past three houses in one block that had their oaks topped. People keep doing this thinking it makes the tree safer or controls growth. But all it does is create weak regrowth that snaps off in the first good windstorm. I have been doing this work for 12 years and I see topped trees fail every single season. It also stresses the tree out bad and makes it more likely to get rot or bugs. Who taught people that cutting the whole top off was a good idea? Has anyone else had to clean up messes from topped trees that the homeowner paid for?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_max14d ago

I've been in landscaping for 15 years and honestly, is a topped tree really that big of a deal? Plenty of them bounce back fine if you keep up with the water and feed them. Sure, a few might lose a branch here and there but most homeowners just want the look and don't care about the science.

leo_fisher14d ago

My buddy had a landscaper top his maple about 6 years back. Looked fine for two summers, then WHAM, a big storm came through and snapped off a giant limb right where the cut was made. That limb came down on his porch, tore through the gutter, and left a nasty dent in the roof. Cost him over a grand to fix the damage and then another $800 to finally take the whole tree down.

lily7013d ago

Honestly, that thing about "don't care about the science" is what gets me. My sister had this guy come in and top her poplar tree because she wanted it to look all neat and round. She watered it and fed it just like you said, and for a couple years it looked fine. Then one day we were sitting on her deck having lemonade and a huge branch just cracked and fell right onto her grill, shattered the whole thing. She ended up having to haul that grill to the dump, and the tree looked all off balance after that too. Sometimes the science catches up to you even if you're trying to keep things pretty.