Guy Meilleur
Addicted to ArboristSite
Arborists, if you read TCI's November issue, it raises questions about proper pruning. Here is an open letter to the author. What do YOU think?
I've been a longtime supporter of PlantAmnesty even though I'm on the Right Coast. Your approaches to restoring damaged shrubs are gospel for me. When I saw the title of your TCI article, I thought, "Great! More support for my May 2003 TCI article against severe drop-crotching!"
Boy was I surprised. You dismissed heading cuts without reason and decried the decisions others make for lack of data while offering no data to support your own case. I strongly agree with you that Risk Assessments should be the arborist's #1 job. (Calling them Hazard Evaluations needlessly forces many tree removals, since retaining anything termed a hazard creates a liability problem. The "Hazard Tree" term is a black-and-white approach, ignoring the wide gray area that many trees live in.) I also disagree with:
1. Follow-up care being unlikely. After crown reduction, this arborist gets a signed contract from the tree owner stating that followup pruning will be done. A town or company can similarly budget and contract for followup care. Not as many arborists are fly-by-nighters as you imply; few tree owners are likely to move away in the 3 year period when the first, most critical, followup pruning takes place. Calling for the removal of trees that can be responsibly managed with followup care is not plant amnesty.
2. Crown reduction having no scientific basis. Tree Statics studies provide much data showing that shorter trees with lighter crowns stand stronger. Simple physics indicates the same. I share your belief that biology must be considered too, but a lot of biological evidence and real-life case studies show that trees respond favorably to crown reduction. More science behind crown reduction and selective heading cuts should be demonstrated soon in another publication.
3. The Demands of Dignity. Everyone has a different view at different times of what constitutes a dignified-looking tree. The photo on page 9 shows a severely reduced tree. Done merely as a fear-reducing preventive treatment, it appears extreme. Done after storm damage, it may be proper. Seen without foliage right after pruning, it looks unnatural, even ugly. Seen after three seasons of growth and a thinning of sprouts, it may have sealed wounds and stout new branches and look great. Years later it may even look dignified! So Dignity is not only in the eye of the beholder, but in the conditions driving the treatment and in the time of the beholding.
Above all, I agree with you that deep drop-crotching often creates more problems than it solves. There is more than one way to prune a tree, and given the variability of these diverse biological organisms there will never be enough hard data to guide our every move. I believe the first rule of an amnesty on trees should be to let them live unless there is a very good reason to kill them.
I've been a longtime supporter of PlantAmnesty even though I'm on the Right Coast. Your approaches to restoring damaged shrubs are gospel for me. When I saw the title of your TCI article, I thought, "Great! More support for my May 2003 TCI article against severe drop-crotching!"
Boy was I surprised. You dismissed heading cuts without reason and decried the decisions others make for lack of data while offering no data to support your own case. I strongly agree with you that Risk Assessments should be the arborist's #1 job. (Calling them Hazard Evaluations needlessly forces many tree removals, since retaining anything termed a hazard creates a liability problem. The "Hazard Tree" term is a black-and-white approach, ignoring the wide gray area that many trees live in.) I also disagree with:
1. Follow-up care being unlikely. After crown reduction, this arborist gets a signed contract from the tree owner stating that followup pruning will be done. A town or company can similarly budget and contract for followup care. Not as many arborists are fly-by-nighters as you imply; few tree owners are likely to move away in the 3 year period when the first, most critical, followup pruning takes place. Calling for the removal of trees that can be responsibly managed with followup care is not plant amnesty.
2. Crown reduction having no scientific basis. Tree Statics studies provide much data showing that shorter trees with lighter crowns stand stronger. Simple physics indicates the same. I share your belief that biology must be considered too, but a lot of biological evidence and real-life case studies show that trees respond favorably to crown reduction. More science behind crown reduction and selective heading cuts should be demonstrated soon in another publication.
3. The Demands of Dignity. Everyone has a different view at different times of what constitutes a dignified-looking tree. The photo on page 9 shows a severely reduced tree. Done merely as a fear-reducing preventive treatment, it appears extreme. Done after storm damage, it may be proper. Seen without foliage right after pruning, it looks unnatural, even ugly. Seen after three seasons of growth and a thinning of sprouts, it may have sealed wounds and stout new branches and look great. Years later it may even look dignified! So Dignity is not only in the eye of the beholder, but in the conditions driving the treatment and in the time of the beholding.
Above all, I agree with you that deep drop-crotching often creates more problems than it solves. There is more than one way to prune a tree, and given the variability of these diverse biological organisms there will never be enough hard data to guide our every move. I believe the first rule of an amnesty on trees should be to let them live unless there is a very good reason to kill them.
