How to remove Leyland Cypress trees

eeinke

Whats the best way to cut Leyland Cypress trees around a house?
We have up to 70-100 of them and they have gotten out of hand. whats the easiest way and safest?

magicbastarder

safest way - pay a professional to do it for you.
easiest way - ringbark them, give them time to die, and then set fire to them*

*i do not recommend this course of action

magicbastarder

more seriously, how tall are they? if they've gotten out of hand, i assume they're tall?

eeinke

yes they are at least 3-5m

magicbastarder

ah, that's not *too* bad so. they can grow to ten times that height.

KildareMan

Go Pro. I had 6 of the feckers and it took over a day to cut down and dig up.

eeinke

having up to 70 trees will be expensive so it'll have to be homejob

Effects

You need to hire a chipper to deal with all the brash, there will be a lot of it.

lawred2

What collective madness possessed Irish people to start planting these?

They are vile

Lumen

3-5m seems sounds more like a tall hedge than a row of trees, unless they've been hard pruned from a taller height in the past.

What thickness are the trunks?

I have helped with an amateur felling of a pair of Lleylandii or maybe 12" trunk thickness and it was a bit scary. The chainsaw operator was a general garden contractor/handyman but not experienced in large tree felling, and neither of us would want to repeat it.

As a rule of thumb, if the job requires climbing with a chainsaw, you need professionals.

magicbastarder

the ones i took out (about 20 or 25m of leylandii, maybe about 12 in total, about the same height) had branches so dense i don't know if a chainsaw as the main tool would have been practical/safe. i took my time at it, and sawed any branches i could with a lopping saw - probably up to as thick as my forearm - so had them down to skeletons by the time the coup de grace was delivered.

Thargor

Apologies for the bump but Im getting a load of Cypress trees removed from the garden soon (Lawsons cypress according to my Seek app), they're absolutely huge and I hate the look of them plus the neighbour wants to go in with me on them because she hates them aswell.

Anyway Im going for a pollinator and insect friendly wild garden at the minute and there will be so much logs from these I could make a couple of woodpiles and maybe edge the whole garden in nice thick logs for the solitary bees and moss/fungi etc.

But now Im worried its an invasive species and native insects wont go near it? Same for the fungi? And I could be just left with a load of useless wood everywhere, what do people think?

standardg60

Dead wood is dead wood, it will be used/colonised regardless so don't worry about it.

looksee

There was half an old rotten telegraph pole in this garden when we moved in. It was lying in a patch of weeds and brambles. When we found it it was mostly hollow and housed mice - the tiny field mice - and bugs of all sorts, and this is a (admittedly very old) creosoted telegraph pole.