Letter: Top-heavy trees

The fashion for removing the lower and middle large branches from trees makes them unstable in high winds. If these limbs are not allowed to spread, or are cut off, a tree becomes top-heavy.

Dismembered trees can no longer effectively counterbalance the waving of their branches, and the weight, unnaturally at the top, is pulled, putting them under too much stress; thus, in storms, high boughs tend to crack and snap; then they fall.

Molly Eden

Colinton Road

Edinburgh