We’ve all felt the pain of a bad haircut. Now, with gardening season here, the city of Vancouver wants to save the local trees from suffering the same fate.

Scott Clifton of TreeWise LLC said oftentimes people plant trees for their aesthetics without considering how much they’ll actually grow. He argues it’s best to just replace a tree after a certain period of time than to top it and deal with the repercussions later.

“We don’t just have enough space in parking strips for trees to grow,” he said. “Topping defeats the purpose. You’re trying to make a tree smaller, but you’re inducing growth. And you’re going to be spending money to prune a tree or you’re going to let it overgrow and be unsightly.”

Source: Pruning season: Lop a little, not a lot, off the top