Bare Trees

bimble

Hi Folks, We have a dozen or so conifer type trees which form the boundary between us and are neighbour.
The problem is I cut them back a few years ago and they have never thickened up again since, we can now see clearly through them into the neighbour's hence the privacy factor has gone
I have also cut them in height, to see if that would cause them to thicken up, but it hasn't worked
I would appreciate any help, and hope it is repairable.

Oldtree

bimble wrote: »

Hi Folks, We have a dozen or so conifer type trees which form the boundary between us and are neighbour.
The problem is I cut them back a few years ago and they have never thickened up again since, we can now see clearly through them into the neighbour's hence the privacy factor has gone
I have also cut them in height, to see if that would cause them to thicken up, but it hasn't worked
I would appreciate any help, and hope it is repairable.

probably leylandii :P but in any case conifers in general do not grow back well on old wood, they should not really be pruned more than a third or in extreme cases a half of the green bits. Not repairable once cut back to old wood.

On the bright side :rolleyes: if you have killed your neighbours trees or severely damaged them (even if only pruned back to the boundry) you are now responsible for the damage, clear up and reinstatement.

But on the offchance post a few photos for a better opinion.

bimble

Fortunately the trees belong to us on our property, will have to look into installing a fence. Will try to thicken up the damage with some honeysuckle plants, which I have read are good hedge fillers and look good too.

Oldtree

bimble wrote: »

Fortunately the trees belong to us on our property, will have to look into installing a fence. Will try to thicken up the damage with some honeysuckle plants, which I have read are good hedge fillers and look good too.

maby reduce the height of the stumps to one appropiate for your privacy, remove limbs that arnt going along parallel to the boundary line and attach wire between stumps to give the climbers somthing to spread on. It may be also possible to re-plant appropiate trees/hedging between the stumps and the boundry, to avoid a fence.

Honeysuckle is a lovely plant with a delicious smell from the flowers.

Marhay70

Perhaps you could plant a hedge of Photinia Red Robin as a replacement, fast growing and good to look at at any time of the year.
The roots of the conifers may present a problem with any future planting schemes so you would need to cut them down and either grub them out or kill them off. If they are Leylandii, the root system is surprising limited but digging out a dozen or so is still not a job for the faint hearted.