Variegated standard holly tree

Slater

My dad has a variegated standard holly tree in thier garden, it's a golden king variety. It needs pruning now as it's grown quite large, say 10ft high with a canopy spread of 8ft and has grown to large for the space now, the canopy starts about 4 ft up the main trunk. Looking under the canopy there are a number of crisscrossed branches some are quite thick, how and when can I prune it so I can reduce the spread of the canopy by half, if I cut to far back into the canopy where no leaves are will it kill the tree off as the leaves only go about 2 ft in. I've read on the gardeners world page  it can be pruned in March. So as long as I cut out the dead, damaged, deceased branches and disorderly branches just after a node will it be ok, obviously the tree will be bare of leaves then. 

fidgetbones

You can cut a holly back quite hard, and it will resprout from brown wood.  It will look bad for a bit, but so long as the trunk is sound, it will regrow.

Slater

Thank you fidgetbones for your reply, yes the trunk is very sound, it's just needs a good pruning to resize the tree 

Slater

Hi
Woukd I need to use any products on the larger branches where I prune to heal where I've pruned 

Dovefromabove

Current best practice is not to seal pruning cuts 😊 

Lizzie27

It's an evergreen tree, so only dead leaves occasionally fall off.  Do the pruning slowly, constantly standing back and walking around to check you are keeping the overall shape - a lollipop.

Slater

Thank you dove from above and lizzie much appreciated for your advice, yes I will keep looking at the shape as I prune the tree not had a good prune in years