The Lemon Fool

We have a holly tree in our garden with about 3 trunks and I noticed this morning that the top of it is now higher that the top of the upstairs bathroom window.

Will it do the tree any harm/good if I take the top 6' or so off it?

Slarti

Don't see why. I've shortened ornamental ones in the past, but my speciality is taking out groves of them in the country park. Cut to ground level and drag out the stumps with a winch. Huge bonfires, great day out.

Slarti wrote:We have a holly tree in our garden with about 3 trunks and I noticed this morning that the top of it is now higher that the top of the upstairs bathroom window.

Will it do the tree any harm/good if I take the top 6' or so off it?

It might just look a bit weird. It will either start sprouting from the cut point, i.e. lots of smaller stems sprouting out, or existing branches will sprout out more stems, making the tree more "bushy". You won't stop it growing that's for sure.

That said, best time to prune it would be winter when it's dormant.

I doubt that it will it any harm to be pruned and anyway I am a great believer in trying to keep things under control. neither do I think it will do a holly any harm to be pruned at the moment. They are very tough and I always thought it was the deciduous ones that you need to be careful with.

Dod

We have two holly trees in our garden and I have over the years pruned them back fairly hard several times without paying attention to the time of year, 'pruning when the knife is sharp' as I think the Greeks put it. They seem to do well after pruning with a profusion of new growth, in fact I was looking at just that from my kitchen window this morning, admiring the new growth.

RC

Holly wood, if cut at the right time can be almost completely white. It is then sort after to use as stringing and inlaid in boxes, furniture, etc. But it needs to be cut when the sap is low or it takes on a greenish tiny. Not saying it is worth doing with the thin top section, just putting it out there is anyone is taking down an entire sizeable tree.

ReformedCharacter wrote:We have two holly trees in our garden and I have over the years pruned them back fairly hard several times without paying attention to the time of year, 'pruning when the knife is sharp' as I think the Greeks put it. They seem to do well after pruning with a profusion of new growth, in fact I was looking at just that from my kitchen window this morning, admiring the new growth.

RC

That's also my experience (though not looking from your kitchen window )

--kiloran

Thanks all.

My reason for asking is that I think that it is now higher than the household insurance worries about within a certain distance of the house, so I thought I might reduce it by a few feet

Cheers
Slarti