Anyone ever tried pollarding?

[lostcoastland]

i'm not a east coast arborist dealing with all kinds of fancy hardwoods. It's maybe a littel too simple out here, but i respect your reluctance... Here in the Humboldt Bay,CA we get 80mph winds every couple years and whole groves of healthy doug fir and spruce uproot . pines just break...trees grow really fast .. Unfortunatly the visions that people have for there tree's are unattainable..unless they top at the proper time- usually 10 or 15 years later they have a tree that is too tall and if you try to save it by reduction of crowns it is hard to be done properly. It's just too late. It's about good nursery stock thats been topped super young so they have a desirable shape. Then the plant can still recouver and it is flexible instead of being a wooden structure with sprout knobs. just like that ####ed up little apple tree that some decided to go along and try out there chainsaw skills on. and all the little sprouts come up . then you let some go and have to cut a bunch otherwise it turns into a porcupine and wont produce fruit. even so it takes years to get another apple. The redwoods that i topped like that are only about 25 years old which is like still beign a sprout for a redwood which live to 2000 years. It benifits the tree because it wont get hacked HARD later on down the road ...plus extra work later on vs removing it.

My picture definetly isnt textbook proper..it is like i said logging.. Sorry i dont have any better shaping topping bonzai effects...nature usually does a good job of blowing out tops before i can get to them....Thank god for that hah!

 

[BC WetCoast]

i'm not a east coast arborist dealing with all kinds of fancy hardwoods. It's maybe a littel too simple out here, but i respect your reluctance... Here in the Humboldt Bay,CA we get 80mph winds every couple years and whole groves of healthy doug fir and spruce uproot . pines just break...trees grow really fast .. Unfortunatly the visions that people have for there tree's are unattainable..unless they top at the proper time- usually 10 or 15 years later they have a tree that is too tall and if you try to save it by reduction of crowns it is hard to be done properly. It's just too late. It's about good nursery stock thats been topped super young so they have a desirable shape. Then the plant can still recouver and it is flexible instead of being a wooden structure with sprout knobs. just like that ####ed up little apple tree that some decided to go along and try out there chainsaw skills on. and all the little sprouts come up . then you let some go and have to cut a bunch otherwise it turns into a porcupine and wont produce fruit. even so it takes years to get another apple. The redwoods that i topped like that are only about 25 years old which is like still beign a sprout for a redwood which live to 2000 years. It benifits the tree because it wont get hacked HARD later on down the road ...plus extra work later on vs removing it.

My picture definetly isnt textbook proper..it is like i said logging.. Sorry i dont have any better shaping topping bonzai effects...nature usually does a good job of blowing out tops before i can get to them....Thank god for that hah!

I think you need to spend some more time observing the ways trees react after topping. What you will end up with is a tree with 4, 5 or so tops. And when they get large enough, the connection point becomes weak and one of those new tops peels out. The topping cut is a prime infection court. It's not uncommon for those tops to be attached to a rotten shell at the topping cut.

Yes, tops in mature conifers on the coast blow out, whether its Douglas fir, hemlock, balsam or redwood.

Notice in your comments that groves of fir or spruce blow down. Usually because they are intertwined and there isn't a single dominant anchor tree. Spruce are notorious to blow over because they are shallow rooted and they tend to blow over when the soils are saturated.

Your arboriculture concepts are about 40 years out of date. Time to get with the times.

 

[lostcoastland]

i guess topping is just redundant then...just a waste of time...might as well take the whole tree down huh...what do you suggest?

 

[lostcoastland]

i dont mind stumpy blown over looking trees...i think there cool...if i dont like it or it looks dangerous...prune or remove...it's that siimple...i'm going to install a osprey nest in a large redwood that was topped by a buddy of mine...it's a great way to create wildlife habitat

 

[lostcoastland]

i'm not stupid i know what happens in the forest.....i'll just be dumb topper dude from humboldt county its all good... i'd be glad to be 40 years behind...thats why i live here...no uptight city folk stressing about what your doing in your back yard. If we want to make a janked out eagle tree and theres no eagles well then..we'll have to cry about that later..but if a osprey moves in we're certainly going to be blessed now arnet we....lol....then we might have problems trying to evict raptors but thats a whole nother thread...

 

[outofmytree]

Dude it isn't about east or west and it isn't about city or country. It's about proper tree practise, shown over and over again to benefit the tree. Shigo proved beyond doubt that topping damages the tree in many different ways and you can see that for yourself if you choose to look. But that is the key. You have to choose.

Every arborist encounters clients who want to top or lop their trees. Its up to you, as the educated professional, to explain that you will not do that and why. All too often you hear complaints like "everyone here does it" or ïf I dont top em I will go out of business" or "it's different in my town you don't know what it's like". The truth is, it is just the same in my town and in every other. I am carrying $280,000 of business debt and if I go down we lose our home. Don't tell me that doesn't weigh on my mind when I tell people that if they wany their trees topped they need to call someone else. Yes it has cost me some business. Some people want what they have always had. On the other hand, I have gained some long term clients who respect the fact that I refused to do the wrong thing even at the risk of losing their business.

Anyone can choose to be better than the crowd. You just have to decide it's going to be you. You can do it.

 

[lostcoastland]

:bang: I am carrying $280,000 of business debt and if I go down we lose our home. Don't tell me that doesn't weigh on my mind when I tell people that if they wany their trees topped they need to call someone else. Yes it has cost me some business. Some people want what they have always had. On the other hand, I have gained some long term clients who respect the fact that I refused to do the wrong thing even at the risk of losing their business....

....Outofmytree...i have a lot of respect for that intergrity and that kind of levelheadedness always pays off...it is our job to make trees last as long as possible even in less than ideal situations...without topping or maybe i should start saying crown reduction , less stigma.... If i was licensed i wouldnt leave behind any topped maples or decidous trees because i know how bad they get after the first year..like a porcupine....i have a job this winter cleaning up a hacked maple..not looking foward to it but whatever it's work..(not my hacking)...I appreciete your faith that i can see the light about the topping issue..which i've always have...so i guess next time were takign everything down to the ground.... No more topping means removals and nothing to prune later so i dont see why shigo didnt think about that...if i cared so much about trees i'd become an enviromentalist.....Sorry if i'm just stupid buts it is reality....and i know how crazy trees get after you top em...just has to be the right tree...It's called a Crown Reduction right?? Am i getting so much crap because i keep callign it topping??:taped: I'd rather be able to do a nice crown reduction than have to pass it over to another hack...I think it's all about timing though you cant go out and do one on a mature tree..it has to be young and supple without alot of meat on the bones...Or else it's hatracking and preparign for globes of saplings to pop that you'll have to spend the next five years pruning...which can be job security...but if you walk away the tree will get much too gnarly after maybe 2 years and further pruning will be unaccomplishable without leaving extra wounds... GEt em while their young and you wont have the issue?

 

[Toddppm]

Nobody ever seen the Sycamores pollarded in front of city hall in San Fran?
Thought I took some pics but couldn't find them, these were on their site.

 

[Toddppm]

These were done the right way.

 

[outofmytree]

Yep, those be pollarded trees in all their ugliness.......

They remind me of giant rose bushes with all the same pruning needs.

 

[BC WetCoast]

:bang:...and i know how crazy trees get after you top em...just has to be the right tree...It's called a Crown Reduction right?? Am i getting so much crap because i keep callign it topping??:taped: I'd rather be able to do a nice crown reduction than have to pass it over to another hack...I think it's all about timing though you cant go out and do one on a mature tree..it has to be young and supple without alot of meat on the bones...Or else it's hatracking and preparign for globes of saplings to pop that you'll have to spend the next five years pruning...which can be job security...but if you walk away the tree will get much too gnarly after maybe 2 years and further pruning will be unaccomplishable without leaving extra wounds... GEt em while their young and you wont have the issue?

You can do crown reductions, but you can't reduce the height of a conifer without topping it. You can reduce the mass of the crown by not it's height. On the other hand, you can reduce the height of a deciduous by drop crotch pruning.

 

[Bermie]

here is a picture I took at the traffic lights in a town on the Newell Highway in Australia last week. I think we were in NSW at the time...these are proper pollards, London Planes I think from the brief glimpse I got before the green light....the things we do when on holiday!

 

[lostcoastland]

I cant drive a mile down the road without seeing some kind of pollarding..!

 

[outofmytree]

Interesting combo that. Phoenix palms and london planes. Do you think that town planners have some difficulty reading tree books? Especially the parts where you figure out how big a NATIVE plant will grow and plant accordingly?

You will have to forgive me. We have so many topped trees here that I occasionally :rant:. I understand under powerlines but can somebody please explain why, in suburbs with powerlines on 1 side of the street they top the trees on both sides??

 

[treevet]

here is a picture I took at the traffic lights in a town on the Newell Highway in Australia last week. I think we were in NSW at the time...these are proper pollards, London Planes I think from the brief glimpse I got before the green light....the things we do when on holiday!

Now regardless of these plants not being started as juveniles they would have to be considered pollards as they have developed pollard heads and their integrity has been retained/maintained. Shigo was accepting of this situation later in his career.

 

[outofmytree]

Now regardless of these plants not being started as juveniles they would have to be considered pollards as they have developed pollard heads and their integrity has been retained/maintained. Shigo was accepting of this situation later in his career.

Yeah but. They are so UGLY!!!

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I cant drive a mile down the road without seeing some kind of pollarding..!

:deadhorse:

Topping and pollarding are not the same thing

Will those upright logs in the picturs above actually live?

 

[mattfr12]

we do it all the time in housing plans we just did 64 trees thats all they wanted done only like 4-5 we took out. people want smaller trees but they dont want them cut down. kinda the cheapest option.

 

[lostcoastland]

:deadhorse:

Topping and pollarding are not the same thing

Will those upright logs in the picturs above actually live?

Thanks for the correction John Sanborn....you are absolutly correct....I have learned quite a bit from BCwetcoast and Outofmytree... thanks guys for seprating the difference and those are soem good examples of what pollardign is...my picture's of the upright logs are a great example of topping...i have been workign in a five acre grove of redwoods in which many had naturaly had there tops blown out creating multiple tops trees which i fixed up by leavign the most dominant top...i'll tell you what it's a hellova job fixing messed up tops and many i removed......The one difference is here we grow trees like the midwest grows corn....today the homeowner showed me pictures of the property when they first bought it after it had been logged...they found 3'diameters logs buried for a landing and sent away 6 or 7 log trucks of salvage...i can literly look at the trees that i was climbign that were 10- 20 ft. tall in 1983 and present day there over 130 ft tall!!......i removed a couple of mutated tops that were 2ft. in diameter 30ft tall...branching out....leaving a dinky little christmas tree on top of a 3ft.d. tree.....Make the best of it...everyplace is different...were all only here for so long...and yes the trees will live....I'm lucky to live in tree trimmers paradise..the neighbors came over and want there 5 acres done now...not topped but limbed up...the topping jobs are purely industrial...but there is a ####load of thinning and limbing...back to work:deadhorse: It's a lot of work but when you leave tops the stick wont sprout...you'll only have clear heart....i joke with them and tell them their grove is there 401k ...if the price of wood ever goes back up....

 

[lostcoastland]

these trees are infantile sprouts compared to what covered the area 100 years ago..the area of eureka is a city of about 26,000 that is carved out of TPZ surrounding the other 99 of the county..thats all we got timber and weed growers..i know many people who are busy full time working to clear marijuana grows and have legal licensed buisnesses. Its just really forthcoming to stare the stump these things are growing off of....i know a guy who started his blacksmith forge in a hollowed of stump that flared out to about 25 feet wide and 15 or 20 feet tall covered with a tin roof...most of the stumps around here have springboard notches...so it's not that big of a deal to cut..basically a sucker...but i'm defenitly all ears to learn whats the best way to prune for health. I think i like the quote "The stronger the breeze the stronger the trees".

The trees in the above had some skinny 100'ers that were about 5" -no taper...lol. some got left behind but i have been a little more vigilant lately...I believe the reason theses are so tall and skinny is because they have been supportign each other by "racking up" branches ...the reason i got the job is becasue they were tired of pickign up shed deadwood...it takes a lot of time to leave branches and is more effective to take all wood up to a certain point...about 50 -50 dead and live , where i get to is about 75 ft. and the growth becomes symetrical. I'm hoping for a reduced crown spurt and a girth increase from dealing with swaying. I havent seen any trees sprout that i've done...except here and there where i might have bad cut..it's been about two years for those. Knock on wood...What do you guys think? Any redwood specialist?