The Consequences of Poorly Trimmed Trees

We see poorly trimmed trees in Fairfax and other surrounding towns all the time, but what happens if a poorly trimmed tree does not heal properly? The result is limb death, decay, and improper grow back. A tree is just a large, woody plant. Whenever you trim a plant, you can expect grow back. If the cuts are made in an improper way, then the habit of the grow back will be poor, which can lead to future failure in leaders and limbs.

Injuries will be present in the canopy of the tree whenever improper cuts get made. The likely culprit of a cavity high in the cavity of the tree would be a broken stem or an intentionally cut stem. And by stem I'm referring to a leader, or a large branch, if you will. If that's cut in mid-span, it is probably not going to heal over like it would if it were cut at a branch union. So, because callus wood doesn't grow, and the wound doesn't close, the woody tissue decays. That's where we get big cavities.

When you're in a forest, and you see a cavity in a tree where racoons might live or a squirrel might have made a nest, that cavity happened because a limb fell off of the tree. It probably fell off at a mature point in the tree's life, so the callus wood didn't close fast enough.

In suburban trees, when we see cavities high up in the cavity, it's usually because an improper cut was made by an amateur tree care provider. And, hollow points high up in a tree present obvious hazards to the people below.

A hollow in a tree is an absence of structural tissue, an absence of wood. As the tree gains weight in its canopy and its limb structure, it puts more stress on these places in the tree that should have very strong woody tissue. If that woody tissue isn't there because the tree is hollow from decay, then the tree doesn't really have enough structural integrity to support these big limbs that are growing. When that happens, the limbs fall off the tree and hit things below.

We've come across houses that have been crushed by falling limbs, where the limbs fell because of these severe that were made. Cars have been crushed. Recently, a teenage girl was killed by a falling limb while walking to school. We've pulled fallen limbs out of swimming pools, off of cars, campers, boats, children's play sets, streets, sidewalks, pedestrian walkways, and buildings.