Rant: that fancy downtown plaza with the 'artistic' tree pruning

I was in Portland last Tuesday walking through that new plaza near the courthouse, and I had to stop and stare. Some landscape crew butchered a row of mature London planes. They topped them like they were trimming a hedge, leaving ugly stubs everywhere. One guy was even using a chainsaw from a ladder without any safety line. I walked over and asked him what kind of pruning technique that was supposed to be, and he just shrugged and said 'the boss said shape them up quick.' There was no clean collar cuts, no branch selection, just hack jobs. I snapped a few photos to show my crew back home. Has anyone else run into a municipal landscaping team that clearly has no clue about proper arboriculture?

2 comments

2 Comments

emery_black10d ago

Actually, I have to disagree with you here. I live three blocks from that plaza and watched them do the work. Those London planes were dropping huge branches every storm and had lifted the sidewalk in two spots with their roots. The crew was from a certified city contractor, not some random guys. I talked to the lead arborist who was on site, and he showed me the city's approved plan that had been reviewed by a state licensed professional. The cuts you saw were part of a structural reduction to fix years of bad pruning from before, not just a quick shape up. Your photos don't show the decay cavities and included bark that made those cuts necessary.

jennifer_jenkins10d ago

Well I clearly need to start taking binoculars on my walks since I missed all that tree drama.