Our Mountain West Arbor Care ISA Certified Arborists continue to make their way through Idaho, this week bringing preventative tree care service to our friends in Rigby and Rexburg.
While traveling throughout Idaho and assisting our customers we’ve encountered a variety of tree care situations and have fielded a variety of questions. While walking the property of one of our Rexburg customers we were asked if our arborist could top a problematic tree.
This was a large Silver Leaf Maple that our customer was afraid had grown a bit too tall and was keeping them up at night with worry.
This was a great opportunity for us to share with the customer why topping a tree should always be avoided, and how the height of their tree was normal, natural, and healthy. It was such a great discussion that we thought we’d boil it down for you in five salient points.
The Five Reasons Our ISA Certified Arborist Will Not Top Your Trees
- Nutrition: topping removes so much of the crown that a trees ability to gather energy and nutrients and deliver them to the root system is severely impacted. In simple terms, you starve your tree.
- Weak/Unstable Re-growth: A topped tree will rapidly re-grow, striving to replace its leaf cover and ability to gather nutrients. This often amounts to an overly dense crown and branches whose attachments are not stable. These branches are highly susceptible to failure.
- Disease/Rot/Insects: The large wounds a tree sustains after topping leave the tree susceptible to disease, rot, and insect infestation. This can cause serious complications that result in limb and branch failures as well as tree death.
- Expense: Topping a tree never “fixes” a perceived issue with the trees height or structure. At the least, it will result in rapid growth and structural deficiencies. The tree will need to undergo repeat maintenance to maintain its safety. While adding to your maintenance costs you will have simultaneously reduced your property values. This can all add up to a considerable expense.
- Aesthetics: Topping a tree destroys its beauty. When the tree strives to replace its leaf cover, the re-growth is often unwieldy and unsightly.
Our Mountain West Arbor Care Arborists will never top your trees. Instead we will selectively thin and prune branches from the crown, maintaining your trees aesthetics, health, and structural integrity.
The Take Away
While providing preventative tree care services to our customers in Rigby and Rexburg, our ISA Certified arborist was asked if topping a problematic tree was an option. This provided us with an opportunity to inform our customer about the perils of topping a tree.
Topping a tree impacts its health, aesthetics, and structural integrity. Consult an ISA Certified Arborist such as Mountain West Arbor Care prior to resorting to such a damaging practice.
Contact us today to learn more about what we can do to help you maintain the health and beauty of your trees.
