Explainer · Pruning to AS 4373
Tree lopping or pruning?
“Lopping” is the word most people use when they want a tree made smaller. It is also the name of a specific technique that a qualified arborist will not use. This page explains the difference, what happens to a tree after it is lopped, and what Jordan does instead.
What lopping is
Lopping means cutting branches or the main stems back to a set height or length, with the cut placed wherever the desired size happens to fall. The cut lands between branches, through the middle of a limb, rather than at a point where the tree has a bud, a side branch or a natural union to grow from. The result is a tree that has been topped: a set of stubs where the canopy used to be. It is fast, it needs no knowledge of the species, and it produces an immediate reduction in size, which is why it still gets asked for.
Why AS 4373 does not allow it
AS 4373, the Australian Standard for Pruning of Amenity Trees, sets out how cuts should be placed so that a tree can seal the wound and keep its structure. It lists lopping and topping among the practices that are not acceptable, because a cut made mid-limb leaves a stub the tree cannot close over. Councils across Bayside, Stonnington and Boroondara reference the standard in their permit conditions, so on a protected tree, lopping is usually a breach of the permit as well as of the standard.
What a lopped tree does next
A tree responds to losing most of its leaves by growing them back as quickly as it can. Dormant buds under the bark around each stub push out a dense cluster of fast, upright shoots. These are attached to the outer layer of the stub rather than anchored into the wood behind it, so they are weakly held and grow heavier every season. The stub itself, unable to seal, is an open entry point for decay, which spreads back into the limb and sometimes into the trunk. Within a few years the tree is often taller and denser than it was before the lopping, but with worse attachments and less sound wood under them. That is why lopped trees come back for more work more often, not less.
What pruning does instead
Pruning places every cut at a point the tree can work with: back to a side branch that is big enough to take over as the new leader, or to the branch collar where the limb meets its parent. Reducing a canopy this way takes longer and needs someone in the tree who can see each union, which is why Jordan works from ropes rather than from the end of a boom. The tree ends up smaller, lighter over the roof or driveway, and still recognisably itself. Regrowth is slower and better attached, and the cuts close over. Tree pruning covers deadwood, weight reduction, formative work and clearance, all to the standard.
What it costs to fix later
A tree that was lopped some years ago can usually be brought back, but not in one visit. Restoration pruning means selecting the strongest of the regrowth shoots on each stub, removing the rest, and returning over two or three seasons to build a new framework of limbs the tree can actually hold. Each stub needs to be checked for decay first, and some will have progressed too far to keep. Where the trunk is affected, the honest answer is sometimes cabling, and sometimes removal. If you have inherited a lopped tree, a tree health assessment is the place to start: it tells you what is left to work with before anyone makes another cut.
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