Help with Bay (lollipop) pruning

RikardS

Greetings all!

We are new, but excited, gardeners. We have a few lollipop Bay trees and wonder when is the right time to prune and care for them?

As shown on the images, they are shooting up with a lot of new leaves (pic 1). 

Also,  have seen that around the feet of the trunk, there's a lot of similar looking shoots growing? Is this from the roots of the tree, and what to do about these (pic 2)?

Many thanks! 
R & L 

Elfer

Nice looking lollipops, I recently bought a couple of those that I am planning to do the first pruning in a few weeks as spring seems to be a bit late this year and they are still shooting with new leaves. I found this article which I think is very good and should answer your questions.

https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/herbs/bay-tree.php#:~:text=Prune out the tip of,dense top of the lollipop.

I also have some Portuguese laurels both as hedging and 4 large cones that had gotten a bit too big. I did give two of them a light prune a month ago which was not strictly the right time as they were getting a bit out of shape but no I'll effects. I didn't touch the other two as they really needed a hard prune which is best done in autumn.

RikardS

Thank you, that's really helpful!

herbaceous

They look like suckers from the main stem RikardS. They need to be carefully removed unless you want to lose the lollipop shape (or make a hedge  ) just cut them off cleanly as close to the stem as possible.

RikardS

Thank you Hebaceus, I cut them with an extra Sharp secateur to make clean cuts. On inspection, seems not the first time that's been done (we recently bought the property)

herbaceous

And probably won't be the last RikardS. With a culinary Bay I don't waste the prunings as fresh leaves have more flavour than dried and pep up soups and stock, waste not want not