Tree topping - trimming + Solar Install + Fed Tax Credit Discussion

[saddina]

In many trees, a hard prune like that would spur hard and fast growth. It'll look bad, open up the tree to rot and disease and need to be repeated till the tree gives out.

I'd take it out, and replant a tree somewhere else on site.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Well, we do have oak sprouting up all over the place (we've been inundated with acorns the last few years)... so I guess I can plant a new one in memory of this great oak.

 

[silkiechicken]

I know very little about trees other than they like to fall on our house. I've seen a few trees "topped" by storms, and within two years, watch a side branch take over as the top, and you'd not have known the tree was broken. Of course, these are also the same trees that re-top themselves every few years after a storm when that new top snaps off the side of the old trunk.

We just had about 16 trees removed and sold off our property for boards and heating pellets. 2-3 of them were 100+ years old.

I don't know about oaks, but to make ornamental trees bushy, you cut the top off and they branch out even more.