“Stop topping trees,” says local spruce.

Here’s an old spruce we brought down recently.

This spruce was topped maybe a half century ago, making it vulnerable to internal decay.

After Asheville’s most recent storm, the tree lost a third of its canopy.

As arborists we are constantly reading the mistakes of the past. Let’s keep topping in the past.

The Art of Winter Pruning

Here’s Ira working with a beautiful mature Black Oak tree (Quercus velutina).

In the first picture, the limbs are marked for reduction after some thought about the tree’s shape, situation, lean, wind load, and how to reduce its tip-weight for health.

In the last photograph, you can see the lateral reductions. It takes more than a “tree cutter” to read and interpret a tree and how it might best respond and be nourished.

Looking forward to seeing how this Black Oak leafs and responds moving foward. (This is a not-so-subtle request for spring to giddy up.)