From 
Ramie Pierce, Urban Forester, City of Tacoma
Is this photo a familiar sight to you? Unfortunately, this happens to trees all too often. It goes by many names:
o Topping
o Heading
o Hat-racking
o Rounding Over
o Tipping
Regardless of what you call it, the practice is out-dated and is frowned upon by professional arborists. A simple search on Google for “tree topping” will turn up many pages about why it’s bad. We agree. For some reason-this practice seems to be popular at this time of the year. We encourage you to refrain from engaging in this practice and to share with others the dangers, expense and ugliness of this practice.
For more information and resources about topping, check out our webpage: www.cityoftacoma.org/stoptopping. Lastly, please, if you don’t know how to prune a tree properly, hire a professional or attend one of our free pruning workshops. We’ve scheduled the next pruning workshop for March 30th-see below for more information.
FREE Workshop: The Ins and Outs of Tree and Shrub Pruning
Saturday, March 30, 2013 at 1:30pm
o Planting projects: We’ve been busy! Many of these are done. To keep the most up-to-date-with photos-please check out our Facebook page (the link is below). Have you gone by and seen any of them? Let us know what you think!
o S Tyler Way-142+ new trees coming soon
o E Wiley Ave- finishing off the planting we started last year and replacing stolen trees- 9 trees
o S 19th St-more infill planting to replace removed trees-7 new trees
o N Pearl St Medians- 47 new trees
o NB I-5 Eastbound S 38th ST Exit-25 new native oak trees, 10 cedar trees to be added
o S 38th and Union Cloverleaf & Triangle-36 new trees
o S 28th & S Yakima Cloverleaf- 19 new trees (fill in around trees planted 4 years ago)
o E Portland Ave Medians-26 new trees
o S 56th and Tacoma Mall Boulevard- replace 7 trees severely damaged by rodents
o War Memorial Park- 15 new trees to replace the 4 removed last year (and more removed over previous years)
o Landfill Entrance-on the west of the entrance-30 new trees in between the existing purple leaf maples
o Total trees planted this winter: 373!
Ramie Pierce, Urban Forester
ISA Certified Arborist PN-6334A, Certified Tree Risk Assessor #766, and ISA Municipal Specialist PN-525-M
City of Tacoma
Environmental Services Department
Pierce Prairie Post 