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Tree Topping, Heading, Pollarding, or Hat Racking

    Tree topping is a harmful practice to trees. Topping removes 50 - 100% of the leaves of a tree.  Since the leaves are the "food factory" of the tree, the tree will forced to use the reserved energies need for hard times.  This weakens the tree and opens the tree up to a higher level of susceptibility of insects, decay, and disease.

     If the tree doesn't die, the tree grows multiply new shots to replace the areas cut .  This new growth does not have a strong attachment point on the branch.  As the shoots grow they interfere with each other causing included bark and crossing limbs.  The new shoots must grow at a fast pace making them brittle and liable to wind breakage.

    The topping cuts often develop decay.  There are no natural healing points on a limb other than at crotch areas.  Since topping is almost always done at a point in-between decay is most likely to happen.  Decay weakens limbs by reducing the strength of the wood.  Compound this with the new growth and you have a limb that is more likely to break than the limb before it was topped.

    There are other methods available to help with or prevent limb loss due to weight or wind load.  The first is crown reduction.  Crown reduction is the removal of select growth in the canopy.  The second is cable and bracing.  This is used for medium to large limbs.  The third is limb removal.  Removing the limb back to a natural healing point.

    There are alternatives to topping trees. Contact us today for those options as well as proper trimming and maintenance of your trees.

Copyright © 2006 Ickes Tree Service, INC
Last modified: January 02, 2007