Advice on tree pruning, please

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Freeranger
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Advice on tree pruning, please

Post by Freeranger »

I have a tree in the garden which is really getting a bit carried away for the spot it's in, and is starting to dwarf the house and block a lot of light. I think it's a lime tree (that shape of leaf and a little light green pocket shaped seed pod/blossom rather like a physalis leaf), and has quite a good shape at the moment, it's just too big. I've done some light pruning on the lower branches, but I don't know how to lower the crown and keep the overall domed shape. I've heard that you should only take out 1/3 of a tree per year, which makes it more of a challenge. Maybe it needs to be done in phases. Can anyone advise, please.
Totally Scrambled
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Re: Advice on tree pruning, please

Post by Totally Scrambled »

Are the leaves like this?
Image
We have two Limes in our garden, both of which got too big. I took a leaf ( :-D ) out of East Malling Horticultural Research's book, they are just down the road from us and have a long line of Limes that they pollarded hard and which came back, looking nearly normal, within a couple of years and are now beautiful trees.
I nearly halved the height and cut all the remaining branches back to the trunk in May 2010 and at first it just looked like a giant stick but started growing leaves within a couple of weeks. The next year it started to look more like a tree and now you'd never know I cut it back as hard as I did. Although a lot shorter it has a good shape.
This is a photo of me taking it down I reduced it in height to about 10 feet below where my feet are.
Image
This is a photo of how it looks this morning.
Image
Hope that answers your questions.
Dom
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Mo
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Re: Advice on tree pruning, please

Post by Mo »

That's drastic. And must have looked a bit odd at the time, but superb now.
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Freeranger
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Re: Advice on tree pruning, please

Post by Freeranger »

Wow. Don't know if I'm that brave!

Yes the leaves do look just like that, but the fruity/flowery bit doesn't. Maybe it's a variant. The overall shape is the same. It isn't one central stem, but three main branches from a central stem after a height of about 75cm, which I think happens at low temperatures, but the technique would be the same, I suppose. Sorry - bit of thinking in print there.

So it seems the only cut away 1/3 at a time is nonsense. We get very hard winters here at 320m, so what time of year would you do something that drastic? I'm thinking late summer - would that be right? Or Spring?

Thanks for the photos, which really help.
Totally Scrambled
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Re: Advice on tree pruning, please

Post by Totally Scrambled »

A woodsman would say late Autumn through to early Spring as the sap wouldn't be running which means it will season for firewood quicker.
Also if the sap isn't running it is easier to cut the wood but I have to say cutting mine in May didn't present too many problems, I only used a hand pruning saw, and it gave the tree time to recover a bit before Winter.
As to cutting back no more than a third of the tree being rubbish, I suppose that depends on the species as trees are pretty resilient. Just think of the coppicers who chop them right down to the ground to encourage the growth they want in years to come.
Dom
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Freeranger
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Re: Advice on tree pruning, please

Post by Freeranger »

Thanks, Dom. I'll give it some thought. We have quite a lot of willow, which I've been coppicing and it is amazing how much trees really want to grow.
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