Can we talk about how I used to top trees without thinking twice?
Honestly, for my first four years running crews around Roanoke I was cutting every lead back to the same height because that's how the guy who trained me did it. Now I do a proper reduction cut at a lateral branch on maybe 70 percent of the jobs I bid, and I tell customers the tree will look odd for a season while it fills back in. Last month a homeowner on Grandin Road asked why I wasn't just taking the tops off her maple like the last company did, and I got to explain it without feeling like a hack. Has anyone else had a hard time getting repeat clients to trust the slower way?