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Founded 05-05-05

Talkin’ Trees

Understanding Boone’s Tree Ordinance

Story by Sam Calhoun

As an official Tree City USA, Boone is serious about its trees, especially when it comes to trees bordering commercial businesses. A few weeks ago, two area businesses found out just how serious the town is about protecting its trees—Lowe’s Home Improvement and a Wilco/Hess gas station both faced fines from the Town of Boone for excessive pruning of trees on their property.

Wilco/Hess appealed its $7,400 fine to the Boone Board of Adjustment and had it waived, but agreed to plant new trees to replace the old ones. Lowe’s Home Improvement, however, paid its $9,600 fine and will attempt to save its trees.

Take a Closer Look at Boone’s Tree Ordinance
Prior to 2007, the Town of Boone’s tree ordinance was simple, requiring preservation of trees and imposing a few maintenance standards, according to Town of Boone Urban Design Specialist Brian Johnson. But in February 2007, the Town of Boone adopted the standards on tree, shrub and other woody plant pruning from the American National Standard for Tree Care Operations—national standards adopted by most American municipalities.

“We wanted to incorporate national standards to be clear,” said Johnson.
Boone’s Tree Ordinance states that all plant materials bordering commercial businesses in the town limits must be allowed to reach their mature size and must be maintained at their mature size. Any trimming or pruning must be conducted in strict accordance with the national standards. The ordinance states that plantings must not be cut or excessively pruned so their natural form is impaired. Improper pruning includes the removal of the central leader, removal of more than 25 percent of the foliage within an annual growing season, removal of more than 25 percent of the foliage of a branch or limb when it is cut back to a lateral branch and removal of more than 50 percent of the crown of a tree within a five-year period.

New Standards Take Hold
When the new standards went into effect, local businesses were not directly alerted about the change, Johnson said, because the Town of Boone considers its quarterly public hearings, town council meetings and all other town meetings as notification to all business owners of ordinance changes.

Every spring, Johnson and his crew from Boone Development Services conducts maintenance checks of the trees at all commercial businesses in the Town of Boone. An anonymous whistleblower—not the annual check—brought the Lowe’s Home Improvement and Wilco/Hess situations to Johnson’s attention, however.

When violations of the ordinance occur, Johnson said, he usually calls the business before levying fines so the business owners can attempt to correct the problem.

“But, in this instance [with Lowe’s Home Improvement], the pruning was so bad it was not correctable,” said Johnson. “Lowe’s got penalized for incorrect pruning.”

Fines for incorrect pruning are $100 for every inch in diameter at breast height for every tree in violation of the ordinance. Thus, Lowe’s Home Improvement received a $9,600 fine for trees that had a total of 96 inches of diameter at breast height, and Wilco/Hess received a $7,400 fine for trees with a total of 74 inches of diameter at breast height.

Even though Lowe’s Home Improvement paid its fines for trees larger than those at Wilco/Hess, the store is not off the hook yet. Johnson is conducting a second analysis of Lowe’s Home Improvement’s trees in the fall to see if they can be saved or need to be replaced.

Prune, But Don’t Over-Prune
Aside from the potential of having to pay fines for overpruning, business owners who improperly cut their trees are harming them to the point that they may lose them.

The International Society of Arboriculture—a nonprofit organization supporting tree care research around the world—publishes a pamphlet explaining why topping trees hurts trees.

“Topping is perhaps the most harmful tree pruning practice known,” stated the pamphlet. “Yet, despite more than 25 years of literature and seminars explaining its harmful effects, topping remains a common practice.”

Topping is the indiscriminate cutting of tree branches to stubs or lateral branches that are not large enough to assume the terminal role. The most common reason for topping is to reduce the size of a tree. According to the pamphlet, homeowners and business owners who feel that their trees have become too large for their property or who are concerned that the trees pose a hazard resort to topping. Topping, however, is not a viable method of height reduction and does not reduce the hazard, according to the pamphlet. In fact, topping will make a tree more hazardous in the long term.

The International Society of Arboriculture provides six reasons not to top trees.

Topping Stresses Trees
Topping often removes 50 to 100 percent of the leaf-bearing crown of a tree. Because leaves are the food factories of a tree, removing them can temporarily starve a tree. The severity of the pruning triggers a sort of survival mechanism. The tree activates latent buds, forcing the rapid growth of multiple shoots below each cut. The tree needs to put out a new crop of leaves as soon as possible. If the tree does not have the stored energy to do so, it will be seriously weakened and may die. Also, a stressed tree is more vulnerable to insect and disease infestations.

Topping Causes Decay
The preferred location to make a pruning cut is just beyond the branch collar at the branch’s point of attachment. The tree is biologically equipped to close such a wound if the tree is healthy enough and the wound is not too large. Cuts made along a limb between lateral branches, however, create stubs with wounds that the tree may not be able to close, allowing decay organisms a free path to move down through the branches.

Topping Can Lead to Sunburn
Branches within a tree’s crown produce thousands of leaves to absorb sunlight. When the leaves are removed, the remaining branches and trunk are suddenly exposed to high levels of light and heat. The result may be sunburn of the tissues beneath the bark that can lead to cankers, bark splitting and death of some branches.

Topping Creates Hazards
The survival mechanism that causes a tree to produce multiple shoots below each topping comes at great expense to the tree. These shoots develop from buds near the surface of the old branches. Unlike normal branches that develop in a socket of overlapping wood tissues, these new shoots are anchored only in the outermost layers of the parent branches. Because the shoots are weakly attached, they often break and fall and become a hazard.

Topping Makes Trees Ugly
Topping removes the ends of the branches, often leaving ugly stubs. Without leaves, a topped tree appears disfigured and mutilated. With leaves, it is a dense ball of foliage. A tree that has been topped can never fully regain its natural form.

Topping Is Expensive
The cost of topping a tree is not limited to what you pay the tree pruner. If the tree survives, it will require pruning again within a few years. It will either need to be reduced again or storm damage will have to be cleaned up. If the tree dies, it will have to be removed.

Alternatives
Sometimes a tree’s height or spread needs to be reduced, such as to provide clearance for utility lines. The recommended technique is to remove branches at their point of origin. If a branch must be shortened, it should be cut back to a lateral that is large enough to assume the terminal role. A rule of thumb is to cut back to a lateral that is at least one-third the diameter of the limb being removed.
The International Society of Arboriculture also recommends hiring an arborist to assist in pruning trees.

For more information on proper pruning techniques, click to www.isa-arbor.com or www.treesaregood.com. For more information on Boone’s Tree Ordinance, call Boone Development Services at 828-268-6200.