Ranting about a hack-job performed on my trees
Two mature cotton trees (Gossypium arboreum) and one mature Bradford pear tree (Pyrus calleryana 'Bradford'—invasive, I know, but still a good shade tree) were brutally and illegally eviscerated by several untrained employees of the City of Lomita today. I'm not sure where the city managed to dig up these dunces, but it's obvious that no trained arborist was involved in the process. Almost every green leaf was stripped from the G. arboreum, and there is severe damage to the bark of the P. calleryana from its numerous encounters with a carelessly wielded chainsaw. To top it all off, this butchering occurred just a couple of days before the worst heat wave of the year is expected to hit southern California, with temperatures exceeding 90°F and likely frying what's left of the trees as well as all of the native plants growing underneath what used to be their canopies.
This poorly thought-out action was entirely illegal as well. Lomita, California, city ordinance §9-2.30 states, "Pruning practices performed by city personnel or contracted by the city shall conform to the pruning standards that have been adopted by the International Society of Arboriculture and/or the National Arborists Association." Any violation of said standards is an unlawful misdemeanor, according to the ordinance, and "[any] person responsible for the illegal topping, pruning, or removal of any city tree shall be required to pay a restoration fee to the city or replace the tree(s) by replanting a tree of equal size, significance, and prominence" (§9-2.55. - Restoration of illegally removed and damaged trees: Fees and fines). Ironically, it was the city that was "responsible for the illegal topping, pruning, or removal" of the trees.
To illustrate the illegality of this pruning job, I've included some images of proper technique versus the technique used by the city's chainsaw-armed sadists:
The ANSI A300 standards by which Lomita requires tree care to be governed state the following:
•"An arborist or arborist trainee shall visually inspect each tree before beginning work." Unless one of the tree-massacring zealots who attacked these trees was an arborist or arborist trainee (and I sincerely fear for all of the trees in my neighborhood if that is the case), this requirement was not fulfilled.
•"A pruning cut that removes a branch at its point of origin shall be made close to the trunk or parent limb, without cutting into the branch bark ridge or collar, or leaving a stub," such as in the following diagram.
Unfortunately, almost every cut made on these trees left a stub, e.g.
•"A pruning cut that reduces the length of a branch or parent stem should bisect the angle between its branch bark ridge and an imaginary line perpendicular to the branch or stem."
Many cuts are made at random angles, e.g.
•"The final cut shall result in a flat surface with adjacent bark firmly attached."
On some cuts, the bark is left peeling and shredded, e.g.
•"Tree branches shall be removed in such a manner so as not to cause damage to other parts of the tree or to other plants or property."
The branches nearby some cuts have their bark damaged and neighboring twigs are broken and left hanging, e.g.
•"Not more than 25 percent of the foliage should be removed within an annual growing season."
These pictures are rather self-explanatory in terms of the lack of remaining foliage:
•"Topping and lion’s tailing shall be considered unacceptable pruning practices for trees."
Wikipedia defines tree topping as "the practice of removing whole tops of trees or large branches and/or trunks from the tops of trees, leaving stubs or lateral branches that are too small to assume the role of a terminal leader," as in this image:
The careless chopping endured by these G. arboreum, in my opinion, constitutes topping:
Additionally, a nearby Pyrus calleryana showing symptoms of entomosporium leaf spot and a possible viral infection was trimmed with the same equipment with no disinfection in between trees, so it is likely that hundreds of similar trees throughout the City of Lomita were just inoculated by these skilled "arborists."
