A retired climber in Boise told me my pruning cuts were 'polite' and I haven't stopped thinking about it

Hannah Wells · 2026-09-25T17:00:05.605483+00:00

I was doing a removal on a big silver maple outside Boise last month and this older guy who used to climb for the city stopped to watch. After about 20 minutes he says my cuts were 'polite,' which I thought was a compliment until he explained it means I was making three small cuts when one good one would do. He told me he watched guys waste 40 minutes a tree babying limbs that were gonna go in the chipper anyway, and that a clean fast cut is actually better for the wood than a slow careful one that tears. I've been climbing 6 years and nobody ever broke it down like that. I tried it on the next three jobs and my timing got better by like 15 minutes a tree. It stung a little but he was right. Any of you ever get corrected by an old timer like that and realize you've been doing something the slow way for years?

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A retired climber in Boise told me my pruning cuts were 'polite' and I haven't stopped thinking about it | Arborists - Talk Freely