By Kris Day Topping is the absolute worst action you can take
under the guise of “caring” for a tree. What exactly is
“topping?” In a nutshell, it is a type of pruning that reduces a
tree’s size by indiscriminately stub cutting the major branches
of a tree. A tree typically ends up looking like a hat rack or
candelabra at best. Other names for this misguided practice are:
stubbing, heading, tipping, or rounding off. Pruning trees in
this way causes, rather than prevents, hazards–one of the main
reasons people claim to do or have this work done. When a tree’s
crown is cut back in this way, it responds by sending out a
flush of growth from the remaining large diameter wood to
replace the leaf area lost. This growth is very weakly attached
and will become vulnerable to breakage in a short time.
Additionally, topping weakens trees by creating large wounds for
them to seal over. It takes a lot of energy and time to close
over cuts of this nature, and most often trees develop decay
before the process is complete. S