Can I cut the tops of my aspen trees?

Believe it or not topping out trees actually makes them weaker and eventually susceptible to disease and dying. Your better off to plant similar growth trees or far enough away that the look is not pleasing to you.

Here are a couple of links for you

http://www.aspensite.org/Diseases.html

Below is the page of URLS for research on aspens

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=diseases+of+aspen...

Please don't! Aspen trees are in the Weak Tree category. Mother Nature designed them to move into burned out areas to grow only a short time before the more dominant conifers move in. What makes aspens weak is they can not protect themselves from injury as well as stronger deciduous trees. Topping is the ultimate injury. You don't have a little ding on the trunk, you have cut clear across the trunk, exposing all that wood to decay organisms in the air. If you want aspens to die soon afterwards, go ahead and top them and watch the demise of your trees.

So what if one tree is growing faster! That's nature. They eventually even out. Be patient. Also get some longer lived trees planted soon, because 7-15 years is all you can expect from most aspens.

Aspens are beautiful, fast growing trees, however, they are not sturdy and with age, they tend to develop a fungus which makes them fall over.

I planted five 30 years ago, and the only one left that hasn't fallen over is infected with the fungus. Tree trimming is expensive!

They are more well suited to an area away from homes.

Topping them will not effect this, only make the tree that falls shorter and bulkier.