What is tree lopping? It actually depends on how you define it. The word “lopping” generally implies to pruning, cutting branches, make the trees smaller, and also tree removal.

For a trained arborist, lopping is not something they will mostly do. That is why when you ask them this question, they will ask how the word is being used before they even answer. Lopping is mostly disfiguring for some trees. It may pertain to the act of cutting the branches or stems of a tree between the branch unions. Pruning, on the other hand, is the cutting of branches back to a fork.

Lopping may cause severe anxiety and even decay a tree. If they survive this procedure, the tree may create an outer shell of new wood. That will make it unstable as the girth and weight increase.

When conducting tree lopping, they will primarily remove all of the leaves which is already bad because the food source is being removed. Removing the leaves will force the tree to use reserve stores. However, the stored food supply may be depleted if they rely on this too often.

What are acceptable forms of tree lopping?

Two specialized form of lopping known as Pollarding and hedging. Pollarding usually involves pruning off regrowth at regular intervals. Hedging, on the other hand, involves cutting stems in between branch unions that could be every 1-2 years or every six months. The frequent trimming will mostly help the new shoots from growing beyond your control and will also help the tree from their own weight.