Tree #1: Terrible Utility Pruning

There used to be a beautiful little group of Empress Trees outside my apartment window, until about a month ago. Unfortunately, these trees were growing around power lines. I knew that at some point, the apartment complex or the city would probably send someone out to prune around the lines, but I did not expect this to happen.


Two men showed up early in the morning and started hacking off branches and limbs. When one of them cabled up the first tree and started removing the top, I actually began worrying they were just going to remove the trees- but what actually happened might even be worse.

As you can see, both large trees and even the small one have been completely topped. On the largest of the tree trees, it appears that two thin to lateral cuts were attempted, but the laterals (especially the top one) are most likely too small to assume the role of leader. The pruning was too severe. These trees were beautifully shaped, and minor branch removal would have served the purpose of clearing around power lines.

This pruning will most likely result in major sprouting and epicormic shooting, but I do not think this tree will ever recover enough and will probably just have to be taken out completely in the future.




Perhaps the most puzzling part of all of this is that the arborists responsible for this job left the branches which are actually putting weight on the power lines!