I agree. Wrong tree in the wrong spot. Either get rid of the pool or get rid of the tree. It's not going to get any less expensive to remove, and you will be removing it (or big parts of it anyway) eventually if it's a big old willow.

I love the tree but it's just too much maintenance with the pool .....The tree IS quite beautiful,

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my first house.. had 12 foot circumference willows... a good 130 feet from the house.. the prior owner topped them down to about 15 feet ... just one big freaking ... very thick telephone pole ...

over my 10 years there ... all it accomplished was to increase severe problems ... huge water sprout branches fell off in any decent wind ...i decided to move .. lol ... and that is the third option to the 2 proposed above ...

i agree.. its time for it to go ... be done with it ... and plant your new mistake.. lol ... i favor oak ... for long term ....

one way to look at it.. is you have already wasted a number of years.. when you could be loving a new tree ...

what you need.. and whats happening.. you are developing a growing hate for this major problem ... and sooner or later.. you will have to remove it [or move] .. in my world.. why waste money topping it now.. to only have to pay money again.. to remove it.. skip the interim costs.. and just bite the bullet ... be done with ...

i know thats not really what you want to hear/read ... but i believe a dose of reality is usually a good thing .... someone has to say it ....

my usual comment about willow .... is that it is a gorgeous tree.. in a park.. a golf course.. or someone elses yard .... lol ...

ken

ps: your neighbor already has the hate on ... lol ..

pps: use of a chemical stump killer can avoid grinding costs ... not many trees die.. simply from pruning.. or cutting to the ground ... with no insult to the root mass ... and tree roots do not go deep .. they are more in a pancake shape ... surprisingly shallow.. compared to that which you see above ...

Not to be one to push back but.... Check out this article and see how great this will looked just a short time after it was chopped off. : http://inandaroundbraye.blogspot.com/2012/11/pollarded-willow-update.html

This "willow" looked...

My willow is 11' in circumference... Here are some photos... PS: Today is a good day... No wind, rain or both... So far...

Can you show a close up of the foliage? It may be a function of the photograph but it doesn't look like typical weeping willow.

It's a beautiful tree. It's up to you if you want the hassle of pollarding every couple of years, cleaning the pool and fending off grumbling neighbours. And new growth will be no less messy than old. There's no pat answer.

Sure:

Cutting willows back hard should be done at end of winter. They look a lot better as a coppice than a pollard, because in the latter case most of the above ground part between pruning sessions is not a stump - the way the one example in the above photo sequence was cut above a major forking (with stubs of side branches being left) is particularly unattractive. And the line pattern created by the branching structure of deciduous trees becoming visible in winter is their main unique aesthetic feature.

OK. It was a function of the reflected light in the photo that made the foliage look strange.

For a weeping willow coppicing would surely look weird? Without the height of the trunk where would it weep to? Those of us used to seeing ancient pollard willows in the countryside they are not unattractive. Van Gogh certainly liked them. But weeping willows weren't pollarded since they are no use for poles or withies.

Well so far I've had "experts" tell me the tree will likely die if I chop it off,... That it won't die if I do, (In fact that this is done purposely to make telephone poles etc) To cut it to the ground or get rid of the pool but also not to cut it to the ground. That it will look terrible if I top it, and I've seen actual pictures that dispute that. That it will get massive and top heavy and be more of a problem, but also that it wont ever get big again or be a problem and that it can be trimmed easier (and cheaper) if it does start getting too big.... That it was likely planted there to soak up excess water but then a dispute that it likes water but that there wont be excess water if I get it cut down, So I'm gonna wing it. I'm not cutting it to the ground. And I'm not letting it get any bigger either. Any bigger and if it's true that they only last 60 years, it will fall on my house and likely kill me. If I chop it off, I think it will look bad for one season and then look fine again. I think that it wont get as massive and if it starts to I will get it cut back cheaply before it becomes a monster. And... Ive read that by cutting it back, not only is it not detrimental to the tree, but it keeps the tree "young" and theoretically, if it was continued to be topped forever, the tree would actually never die. Thanks for the advice everyone but I gotta do what I gotta do. Tree experts are like doctors. You can always find one to disagree with the diagnoses or the solution.

I can assure you that willows aren’t used as telephone poles as the wood isn’t rot resistant or strong enough, so you can eliminate the person who told you that from the list of experts.

It sounds like you are going to do what you want, so you can consider this an experiment or lesson in pollarding. It will need to be done at least every couple of years, and isn’t a look I find particularly appealing. There is a pair of pollarded catalpas that I pass often, and the house changed hands a couple of years ago and they haven’t been regularly maintained since and the whole mess is truly ugly. You may end up with rot and shortening the tree’s life, but you can always remove it then. The tree will do what it wants in response to your topping it.

Willows can be cut back hard on an almost annual basis and they will survive....one of the few trees that will tolerate this treatment. But it will NOT increase their lifespan, they won't live forever and the look as they grow back - which they will and quite rapidly - can be iffy at best.

Telephone poles are made from tall growing conifers - never willows or other deciduous species - douglas fir, jack pine, western red cedar, lodgepole pine, silver fir. They are also treated with a preservative to increase rot resistance. And tree 'experts' are really that - experts with dendrology courses behind them and typically a certified arborist designation. Anyone else is just a "tree guy" with minimal horticultural training.

And a willow telephone pole would be quite likely to take root. Willow fence posts certainly do.

Long established, large-growing kinds of willows grow fast enough that a semblance of the original weeping habit can be regained the same year that the cutting down low was done - if it is done at the correct time early in the year. (Otherwise the starting over procedure can be done every other year or maybe even every third year. and still not have the work be a huge project each time). And in the situation asked about here the top of the tree being kept much smaller (and farther away from the pool) would presumably reduce the littering of the pool, probably by quite a bit - it is not necessary for the tree to hang and tower over the water feature in order to provide a weeping backdrop for it.