Portuguese Laurel Trees – To pleach or not to pleach?
matthewbrock1980
Posts: 2
Hi, I’m a newbie to the forum and to gardening, and really hoping someone will be able to give me some much needed advice regarding some new Portuguese Laurel Trees. I have recently planted 10 of these trees, 1.4m apart, along the back of our garden for screening from neighbours. They are already 3.2m tall and I don’t need them to grow any taller, but I do want them to thicken out and over time meet to form a hedge on stilts.
Is the best and most effective way to do this to pleach the trees? Or should I just trim them as if they were a normal hedge?
Any advice anyone can offer is greatly appreciated.
0
Posts
If you want them on stilts you have to pleach them by removing all the lower stems to the desired height and then pruning the upper stems to remove outward growing stems and tie in the horizontals you want to meet up. You also need to cut the top stems at, our slightly below your maximum desired height level.
I have a feeling that laurels are so vigorous, especially in response to pruning, that this may not be a successful experiment but give it a go anyway. It is more usually done with beech, hornbeam, bean tree and such which I have seen used very successfully.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Hi Obelixx
Thank you for your reply. I've included a photo of the Portuguese Laurel trees. You can see from the photo that the lower stems have already been removed.
If the laurels are vigorous in response for pruning, how would this make them a bad choice for pleaching?
They will quickly sprout new growth up the bare stems and long stems in all directions from the top part. Potentially high maintenance.
Yours looks good so far so let's hope it behaves.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw