Pruning trees improves their structure, promotes healthy growth, and makes them more resilient to extreme weather. Removing dead or dangerously overgrown branches can beautify the natural landscape and prevent property damage from falling branches.
However, there's a right way to prune and a wrong way to prune, as one homeowner discovered after a landscaping company carelessly hacked away branches in their neighborhood.
In a post to r/arborists, a homeowner in an HOA community shared photos of young oak and magnolia trees that landscapers butchered and left with partially cut branches.
"Loppers could have cut most of the branches, but they clearly didn't use any," the homeowner explained. "Is it normal to leave a foot of cut branch off the trunk? Is there any recourse for our neighborhood/HOA?"
No, that landscaping is not normal, nor does it look healthy for the trees.
Even professional companies that specialize in tree care sometimes make pruning mistakes that stunt trees' growth and make them vulnerable to environmental conditions.
To properly prune a tree, you should cut the branches at the branch collar, not at mid-branch. By pruning in the middle of a branch, you promote the growth of weak sprouts and can cause the tree to die.
It's also important to use sharp and clean tools to make smooth cuts.
Trees have tremendous value in residential areas and provide many benefits beyond aesthetics. Research shows that trees can dramatically lower air pollution and make our communities easier to breathe and live in.
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Tree experts on Reddit were shocked to see the landscapers' work in the original poster's photos, and were confused as to why they would make such haphazard cuts.
"Pretty bad cuts, and some that look just snapped off?" one Reddit user wrote in the comment section. "Not sure how they managed that."
"But seriously, what tool did they even use to make these cuts?" a Redditor wondered. "Everything from a handsaw, to chainsaw, to pretty much any kind of saw I can think of, should leave cleaner cuts than that, nevermind the crazy damage they did where they didn't cut."
Another Redditor commented, "That's no landscaping, that's vandalism."
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