mile high club
Percy-Grower
Posts: 253
High guys, got a question and the answer could save me a lot of hassle, it's a common gardening problem, my garden on the east side is lined with leylandii which are high enough, and to be honest it's getting to be a pain having to prune them two or three times a year, the question is can i cut them back say two or three feet into the trunk without harming the tree, and will this stop it growing up and start it bushing out?
Cheers
Davie-S
0
Posts
dont think leylandii take too well to being pruned hard on the sides.
id certainly take the tops of them before they are too silly a height.
don't like the things myself thou thuje are a much nicer alternative
You can stop the main trunk at about a foot below the height you'd like them to be but leave the side stems to grow and cover up the wounds. We inherited a straggly conifer hedge and have taken 3 metres off its height. It's very wide and will never be a tightly clipped precise hedge but it does provide a wind break as well as shelter for birds as its middle is a bit hollow now.
Trimming the side growth regularly will encourage yours to thicken up but make sure you only cut into green stems as they don't grow back from brown wood.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Thanks guys, thats just what i wanted to hear...
Davie-S