What do you recommend?

[mccauleytree]

Ok guys we got hit HARD this past weekend with a big snow storm and a lot of trees were damaged. This old topped silver maple was one of them. The homeowner really wants to keep this tree but only 3 leaders in it did not break out. He wants me to just top it down to the wood and leave it but I do not want to do it. I strongly recommended removing it. What would you guys do with it.

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[sotc]

Looks like enough canopy to reduce lightly and leave. If not, remove down to a 10' stump so the home owner can finish removing it later
Hard to leave something like that in a front yard though. Are they old folks? If not try talking them into a large specimen type tree to replace it with

 

[Paul B]

reduce to unbroken stems, schedule annual thinning

 

[Mr. Sir]

When I was your age, I would have tried to talk them into a removal or refuse to butcher it. These days, I'm more inclined to do what the customer wants while trying to minimize damage to the tree. My idealism has apparently waned with age.

 

[SkwerI]

When I was your age, I would have tried to talk them into a removal or refuse to butcher it. These days, I'm more inclined to do what the customer wants while trying to minimize damage to the tree. My idealism has apparently waned with age.

Yeah, this. I was driving through a neighborhood Saturday that I haven't been through in many years. I recognized a house with about a dozen trees where I had worked about 15 years ago. I remember the trees were all very nice, small to medium size specimens and I spent a lot of time convincing the owners that their trees did not need to be topped. I worked hard on properly pruning and training the trees for future health and structure. All that was wasted though, for when I saw them on Saturday they had all been topped. With ugly, ripped cuts. Really made me feel like everything I do is just a waste of time.

If you don't want to top it then just walk away. You have to decide if you're willing to top trees or not, and if not then quit wasting your time trying to 'fix' people who want their trees topped. They will get their way no matter what you say or do. It really is a slap in the face when you work hard to try and make the tree right and then you see where some hack topped it a year later.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I'd call the house's resident artistic pruner, Stephen, to have at it. Pay him double his going rate.

 

[FJR]

A small reduction and your good to go, no need to top it.

If the client is dead set on topping then I walk. There is a Silver Maple I drive past everyday that I refused to top a few years ago, so I walked. Now it looks like shit. I don't want my name associated with that work. I will make a little less money and keep my pride and stick to what I believe in.

 

[Bodean]

I guess I'd hat rack it, if that's what the client wanted.
It certainly would reduce the hazard of a lever lead snapping.

Then, watch it. Maybe in 3 years you wreck it for them, If they want.
Half price if you're a community service kinda guy.

 

[Burnham]

Mother nature topped that one...you'd just be cleaning up afterwards.

It might be different if it was all healthy and whole and you were asked to hat rack it.

You should see what I had to do to a nice cascara outside my second story bedroom window after early snow busted the crap out of it last year. Looked like a rape job right after I did so, but it is still there and I can work with the regrowth over the next few years and hopefully make something of it.

 

[flushcut]

Personally I would kill it but if the HO wants it just clean it up as best you can.

 

[stig]

I'd kill it, too.
But then I have a hair trigger when it comes to killing trees.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Make the cuts Coronet cuts!!!

 

[Mr. Sir]

Mother nature topped that one...you'd just be cleaning up afterwards.

There you go, best answer yet.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I'd cut it way back so it at least had some not all indecent visual form, then hope for the best including living.

 

[mccauleytree]

Thank you all for the suggestions and opinions, I have a few days before the job is done. Some of those leads that look healthy actually have some cracks in them so they will have to come out as well if I can talk him into a reduction prune. We will see though. Thanks again everyone.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Thanks for the plug Jay.. But I doubt I could make much of anything with that night mare...

I would take it back to the original butchering cuts and sell them on some maintenance type pruning every couple of years and treat it like a pollard.... Milk the SOB for what it was worth and kill it eventually with a basal prune.
Basically less politely as Burnam put it.

Am I in a mood or what?

 

[canadiantreeman]

Removing the stems back to the old cuts isn't necessarily topping. As long as the cuts are nodal, there should be sprouting growth in the spring and the tree may be able to compartmentalize with the energy produced by the vigorous sprouts. Silver maples are notoriously bad compartmentalizers, so in my opinion I would rather cut higher than the old cuts, at nodes and manage sprouting for several maintenance intervals. That tree might not ever be a large tree, but you could probably maintain a smaller tree with a higher rate of pruning (think $). No need to remove completely, the thing ain't that big.

 

[treelooker]

Removing the stems back to the old cuts isn't necessarily topping. As long as the cuts are nodal, there should be sprouting growth in the spring and the tree may be able to compartmentalize with the energy produced by the vigorous sprouts. Silver maples are notoriously bad compartmentalizers, so in my opinion I would rather cut higher than the old cuts, at nodes and manage sprouting for several maintenance intervals. That tree might not ever be a large tree, but you could probably maintain a smaller tree with a higher rate of pruning (think $). No need to remove completely, the thing ain't that big.

"reduce to unbroken stems, schedule annual thinning"

+1 and +1. FJR and Burnham, +1, too. It's not up to us to say kill or keep, just work with what Nature left us, and trust Nature (and our care) to retain the asset. The smaller the wounds, the better for the tree.

 

[Old Monkey]

Top it but make sure to call it crown restoration. It should be fine?

 

[squisher]

No doubt.

Looks like the tree was brutally topped in the past. Silver Maple. Ughh I'd recommend removal and re-planting.

I bet it went so bad for that tree because of it's past treatment.