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I quit doing annual crown cleanings on mature oaks, and a job in Portland last month proved why
Everyone in my local group swears by yearly crown cleanings on big oaks, but I stopped pushing them after watching a crew strip 30 percent of the live canopy off a 90 year old white oak in Portland last month just to hit the sold hours. Two weeks later that tree dropped a scaffold limb over a driveway, and the owner told me the climber had cut right through the branch collar on that side. Excess pruning opens wounds that never seal on oaks, and the tree pays for it while we bill for the visit. I told the owner I would rather walk the tree twice a year for free than make one big cut. Anybody else scaling back on routine cleanings, or am I the odd one out here?
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colegarcia1mo ago
Wait, 30 percent of the live canopy gone on a 90 year old oak? That's wild, that's not a cleaning that's basically a buzz cut. And cutting through the branch collar on top of it is just asking for trouble. Sounds like they were chasing hours, not what the tree actually needed.
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