Extreme Horridculture warning! This recycled article most definitely conforms to the meme. It is amazing that such hack jobs are tolerated and actually payed for. Believe it or not, these are not the worst examples.
There is at least one arborist in the region who performs exemplary pollarding, and maintains the sycamore that provided the illustration for the articles that I wrote about the topic earlier. It must be incredibly frustrating for such qualified professionals to see such mutilated trees!
Pollarding and coppicing are bad words to most American arborists. These extreme pruning techniques are considered to be synonymous with topping. Yet, both have been around for centuries, and have actually kept some trees alive and productive significantly longer than they would naturally live.
Rather than redundantly explaining what pollarding and coppicing are, and why they are useful arboricultural techniques, I will provide this link to an article I wrote about them earlier: https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/pollarding-and-coppicing-pruning-techniques/
I am one of the rare American arborists who not only condone pollarding and coppicing, but I also use these techniques when necessary. I will be coppicing red twig dogwood soon so that it produces more vigorous red twigs next year, and also because we can not allow it to grow wild as a thicket. Some of my fig trees will get pollarded to make vigorous shoots for cuttings, and also to keep them contained in…
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Tony Tomeo 