Lopping is perhaps one of the best and most effective ways of allowing the trees on your property to grow healthy. After all, healthy trees have aesthetic and health benefits that you cannot afford to lose out on simply because you do not bother to take good care of the plants. While hiring an arborist for tree lopping services is advisable, you can still carry out the exercise on relatively young trees. First, however, you need basic tree lopping knowledge. Notably, the know-how involves understanding the most common tree lopping mistakes that homeowners make. Read on to find out. 

Choosing the Wrong Time — You cannot wake up one morning, look at the young trees in your yard, and decide straight away that they need some pruning. Just because trees look a bit scraggly does not mean you can trim them at any time. Premature lopping risks removing buds on critical branches that help trees grow over the seasons. In this regard, arborists advise property owners to trim their trees during spring before the buds sprout. Trimming in the fall is also good because trees have had time to bloom.   

Lopping the Top of a Tree — Another common mistake homeowners make when trimming trees is pruning the top, commonly referred to as topping a tree. It might seem like the right thing to do, especially if the top section looks ragged and irregular. However, lopping branches on top of a tree is the last thing you should do because it leads to the uncontrolled growth of water sprouts, which have a negative impact on growth. Moreover, topping a tree increases the chances of unbalancing its structure, causing instability as it grows. Therefore, you should only trim branches around a tree and not the top. 

Trimming Big Branches — Tree branches vary in size. The largest are called boughs, while the smallest are twigs. Large tree branches play an integral role in overall health, growth, and balance; consequently, they should never be trimmed. Notably, trimming large branches reduces the number of nutrients the smaller branches receive, stunting a tree's growth. Besides, cutting the largest tree branches promotes the growth of foliage on twigs. Unfortunately, it causes a tree to become too heavy at the top and susceptible to falling during storms. Thus, you should only trim the largest branches if they pose a safety hazard to people and property. Otherwise, you should leave the largest branches intact.

For more information on tree lopping, contact a company near you.