Problem With Tree Taking Over The Garden

pinkfloydian

Hi,

I have a couple of what I believe are Leylandii (I could be wrong) and they are taking over the garden. See Photo attached.

I've had them for over 20 years and although they seem to be slow-growing, they are far too big now for the garden.

The tips of the branches remain green, but inside, they seem to be dead and dried up. You can see this at the bottom, where I have trimmed away from lawn.

This suggests to me that a good trimming would be a useless exercise, and probably kill the tree.

If they can't be trimmed, then I will need to get rid of them.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Tommy

Jim_Hodge

Doesn't look like leylandii but still won't respond to cutting back to brown foliage. I'd take it out while it's still an reasonably feasible option.

Exiled1

Definitely not leylandii.

But you're right, far too big and will only increase in size. Cut down now.

pinkfloydian

Ok, so I'm inclined to remove them. Can I ask for further assistance:-

I have 3 of them.

Is there a period when I am NOT allowed to cut them down?

I'm in north County Dublin. Any ideas of good tree surgeons.

Should I put up a separate post asking for assistance?

Tommy

Jim_Hodge

Take them down any time you want. Personally I'd do it myself over the winter as they don't seem too big.

phormium

Not Leylandi or it would be a damn sight bigger in 20 yrs, some other conifer but agree no alternative but take them out now when they are some bit manageable. They can't be trimmed to any great amount as they won't regrow once you cut into the brown.

Not too hard to get rid of, I cut down one like that myself, actually I cut away all the branches up along the stem as far as I could comfortably reach, then kinda liked the look of the cone shaped top and long stem and left it like that for a couple of years. Then I borrowed an electric saw thing to cut some thick hedging branches and you know yourself once you have it you just keep going around looking for more things to cut! So anyway I cut it down, I haven't bothered dig out stump, it's not in my way really and it sounds like hard work, I just planted geraniums around it and they cover up enough when they flower.

Although obviously when you have 3 of them to get rid of that's a lot of stuff, one was manageable, probably handier to get someone in. Get it done before 1st March.

Martin121

The main problem is in the tree species choice. Just choose trees with desired final height when matured and you dont have to deal with pruning.

Calahonda52

If you are anyway handy, you dont need tree surgeon, who could set you back 700 to 1000 lids

Post 6 above describes what I did, except I had a garden shredder so I did it in bits and put the shred stuff in the brown bin.

The best tool for it, assuming you are handy, is a cordless shark saw, with lots of blades, it will get you most of the way.

If you are thinking of removing the stumps then leave as much as possible in height for leverage with a tifor

You need to be careful of the garden wall with pulling the stumps.

I had 14 Leylandis along a shared wall and what I did was once they were cut back to about 12-16 feet, I dug around to find the roots and then put on the tifor so as to put the exposed roots under good tension, they then cut easily leaving the roots going under the wall in the ground.

The last one I hitched to the car from the road with 100 feet of nylon rope

looksee

As with many of these jobs, with a bit of patience you could easily take that out with a bow saw. I took out a similar tree, but bigger, with lots of stems, no problem. I didn't bother with the roots as they were not in the way, and as you would expect with conifers they did not sprout again. As suggested above, take off a good few of the branches then you will be able to get at the trunk.

standardg60

Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Boulevard' if anyone's curious as to what they are.

Fairly straightforward to just cut them down yourself OP, but drop me a PM if you'd prefer assistance.

As above there's no need to worry about removing the stumps as they'll just rot away in time.

magicbastarder

yep, that's a local handyman job, if you're not willing or able to do it yourself, can't see it costing more than a hundred quid. there's no real danger apart from stupidity in taking that down.

though they'd charge more to take the wood away.