The Effect of Severe Pruning on the Structure and Beauty of Trees

It is cheering to read of the efforts to preserve and protect heritage and other trees threatened by urban development (Times editorial “Trees to Reach New Heights,” March 30). But development is responsible for adding many more new trees as well. Unfortunately, these trees are also in peril. Their graceful forms, which soften our architecture and temper the harshness of our climate, are routinely reduced to a collection of barren stumps.

Unnecessarily severe pruning causes a tree’s structural integrity and beauty to be forever ruined, creating safety and maintenance problems for the life of the tree where none previously existed. The costs are high: degradation of environmental quality, increased energy consumption by air conditioning, increased refuse to expanding landfills and unnecessary maintenance.

The practice is apparently spreading. As with heritage trees, citizens’ groups and city councils must act to curtail this destructive trend, or we will continue to bequeath to the future not a great urban forest, but a landscape of disfigured trees, impaired in beauty and function.

RICK BORKOVETZ

Huntington Beach