Topping. Why is it so hard, not to take it personal?

[woodworkingboy]

The one thing I don't like about topping is that sometimes it makes me think that I'm turning into a farmer.

 

[Ryan]

I've cut to laterals as much as I could on a "top" job only to be sent back up to stub them off lower. Now that I do treework as a hobby and not a source of income I won't be taking on any idiot requests.

 

[SkwerI]

I do this for a living because I love it, and I charge money because I can't afford to do it for free. Money is not my primary motivation. I may have lost my best client last Thursday because the owners of the property sent me back up into every single tree in the front yard twice to cut more. After four separate cases of 'set up over here and cut one more limb' I got pissed and packed up my shit and left. The trees were trimmed correctly, then they were overtrimmed, then they were overtrimmed some more. I wasn't going back to set up again and cut more on any of them and money didn't have a damn thing to do with it. Later the company owner said "Aren't we paying you by the hour? What difference should it make?" He just doesn't get it, he cuts trees for money.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Sounds like someone you never shoulda messed with, from the get-go.

 

[SkwerI]

He's one of my best clients though, and most of the time he wants me to do my thing and gives me the freedom to trim the trees however I see fit with just a general idea of what the customer is looking for. These people were out in the yard all day, I almost nailed the husband twice because he kept walking under me. And the guy I'm working for spent half the day sucking up to them instead of getting them out of our way. I spent an hour setting up four times to go back and cut more limbs after the yard was already cleaned up once. I told him at lunch that the owners wanted the trees gone but wouldn't admit it, and they wouldn't be happy until every limb was cut off every tree. I wasn't going to stay there all night going back and cutting down the trees one limb at a time. Paul screwed up by not saying 'no' to the clients after an hour of add-ons. Don't tell me the tree is fine while I'm in it and then point back up 20 minutes later to get one more limb after I've moved the truck.

 

[SkwerI]

Sorry for the derail Thomas, I had to get that off my chest. Been pissed about it for two days. It wasn't topping but it might as well have been, it was still cutting way more off the tree than is healthy and I was put into a position of being forced to make the trees less safe and much more likely to fail in the future.

 

[Strikermike]

I consider any topping I do as the first step towards removal.

It is not topping. It is staged removal.

 

[thattreeguy]

I have to top some trees for a view easement next week
side trimming a lot of trees, to create a corridor
and topping all the defective trees in the center of the corridor
1 to open the view,
2 if youre gonna kill a tree, it might as well be the crappy ones in a stand, and leave the good ones side trimmed as needed and allow them to grow big with a view window to whatever the view is

i hate topping
i usually wont do it, i walk from those jobs

i may have only done a few here, usually due to porcupine and skwerll damage in the top

 

[woodworkingboy]

Slight derail, but speaking of taking tops or chunking down trees, I had a chance to use this device recently when chunking down some big trees crane aided with a long reach, only down to 500+ pounds liftability with a 25 ton crane. The operator had me buy one for him awhile back. I don't think that they were ever very popular with the high price, but they work absolutely slick with big tops in terms of keeping your saw clear. There was some discussion here about them earlier, and some folks seemed to think the taper was too great for practicality, but that isn't the case, they bite and hold very positively, at least with the conifers. With a big top with lean and no crane, I don't know if i would want to trust one implicitly, but i am finding them to be a very useful tool in the right situation. Just reach over and with a few cranks on the ratchet, it really lifts the pick in the direction you want. They get a good bite immediately. Some good thought went into these.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I use this small wedge, tied to my saddle. As you can see, it's been heavily modified. I can start a thread about how I did it if any one expresses any interest.

;>)

 

[gf beranek]

I don't see the average home owner ever getting a clear understanding on what is good for their trees. Even in spite of how much the industry has advanced and the knowledgeable craft in the field is perusing perfection. The average HO will never get it. And so topping will continue. and a few other not so good things

 

[woodworkingboy]

On a basic level, "get it" comes down to seeing. If a person can't look at something and see that it looks like or will look like crap, then unless you are high in their book on trustability, it is pretty hard to convince them to change their thinking. For whatever reason, lots of folks got the short end of the stick when it comes to a sense of aesthetics. If they studied about it they would have a much better understanding, really seeing is feeling too.

 

[Greenhorn]

Some of the jokers around here still advertise topping as an offered service

 

[Thor's Hammer]

Darin, Don't be silly-There is no pamphlet-it is just a little post-it note.

Most people listen when I explain teh negative consequences of topping. Sometimes I sell a nice pruning. Sometimes I sell a crown reduction as a less bad alternative to topping. Sometimes they get someone else. C'est la vie. Aargh, patooey,....French!

I don't have enough to fill a whole post-it note.

 

[SkwerI]

Getting back specifically on topic, I take it personally because I know better. If you went to a doctor and asked him to chop your arm off because it was too big or you didn't like it any more, could the doctor be held responsible for your decline in health and eventual death due to complications from following your request to chop off your arm?

When I'm asked to trim a tree, I am supposed to be working to make the tree safer and healthier regardless of what is done. At the very least it is my moral responsibility to not create a hazard. But every time homeowners come out and start pointing at limbs they want removed, I'm put in a position of being forced to choose between creating a hazardous situation or pissing off the homeowner. And I like trees better than I like most people, so you can imagine that I usually end up losing clients when put into that situation. If they want to hire some hack to go back and butcher the tree after I'm gone, then at least my name isn't on it. I'm not going to intentionally create a hazard just because some uneducated homeowner points at a healthy limb they want chopped off for whatever excuse they give. Especially when I've already cut a third of the canopy out and we're now at the point of causing irreversible harm to the tree.

 

[flushcut]

I don't see the average home owner ever getting a clear understanding on what is good for their trees. Even in spite of how much the industry has advanced and the knowledgeable craft in the field is perusing perfection. The average HO will never get it. And so topping will continue. and a few other not so good things

So true! I have topped one tree and that was for hazard mitigation a young hollow ash at about fifty feet up. When I get asked by a customer to top a tree I start pushing limb tip redux or drop crotching and 99% of the time it is to keep the peace between neighbors. I think we take it so personally is the fact that we know better.

 

[treesandsurf]

If they want to hire some hack to go back and butcher the tree after I'm gone, then at least my name isn't on it.

I get that request a lot, and I just tell them it is not the type of work I do but I know about five or more companies that would do it no problem. If they are interested in what I'm saying they ask more questions and a lot of times they are really open to seeing it from a different perspective. The ones that just want the hassle taken away at the least price I'm not interested in working for anyway.

jp

 

[Al Smith]

I don't see the average home owner ever getting a clear understanding on what is good for their trees.

Isn't that the truth .

Maybe 20 years my old bud the tight wad conned me into climbing a silver maple and basicaly a crown reduction .No prob .It became a problem the fourth time the SOB called me back .

Sure enough 5-6 years later danged if he isn't on the phone again .Mrs Smith took care of that in my stead .--No he isn't climbing that damned tree again .He's 56 years old and works 10 hours a day 7 days a wek ,call someone else --Good woman

 

[Old Monkey]

One of the things I've found is that to a lot of people "tree topping" means "tree pruning." When I describe what topping is, they quickly say "Oh no, that's not what I had in mind." So when someone calls me to come give them a bid on topping their trees, I go bid them, tell them what should be done and seldom have folks who still want to whack off the top third of their trees.

 

[Al Smith]

Most of you just would not believe how they "hard " prune them around here .It never seemed to be a big deal with the silver maples but good heavens I've seen oaks cut back hard .That usually kills them . The dumb thing about that is it's not the oaks that shed limbs in a big wind storm, it's those damned maples .

However if and when a big oaks lets loose a big limb normally they get that thing removed for fear it crushs something . Usually they do,not much can stop an oak if it decides to come down .

 

[bill22]

I remember a job I did in north Florida last year. An old friend of mine knew I was visiting and called me up,said I have a 2-3 day job for you if your interested. 9 pecan trees,all over 100' tall needed to be cut back to 30' stumps. Hey money is money and the job paid good money.

 

[Tucker943]

I dont do it. I used to get erked when I would plead against it, and they would have another tree rat come alng and do it anyhow. I dont care anymore. I really dont. Ive talked LOADS of folks out of topping and into letting me prune their trees and 95% of the time they were happy with how things came out. What I do now, is explain my feelings and facts on topping over the phone to the potential customer. If they have any inkling of interest in hearing me out on better approaches to their problem, I'll go do the estimate. If they are totally set on raping the tree, I decline bidding the work. Times are too tough for me to waste time and gas on looking at work that I wont even do.

Besides how bad topping is for the tree, it just looks like a real nuisance to do in a saddle.

 

[Ryan]

If you had to climb a topping job where it's gonna end up an unhealthy eyesore, are you saving any face by not gaffing it? My last terrible top job was aborting an American Elm. I didn't have spurs in my kit at the time so the temptation wasn't there but it sure would've made it alot safer and easier to do the job.

 

[Tucker943]

If I was going to top a tree, Id spur that thing silly!

 

[gf beranek]

Yes I topped the tree, but I didn't wear spurs. Bill Clinton