hey all,

after some garden advice,thought we all play out doors with our toys so might be a place to get some help.

basically i want to cut the top of the tree off(the left side of the hedge) to make it level with the other one to the right but,this will leave a a very thin top part of the tree as the bottom of it is also very bare.

is there any way of increasing growth of new branches in the lower half of the tree. sounds silly but, can you cut green ones the upper part of the tree, drill a hole and plug it in and hopefully it grows?

pics bellow

any help welcomed

liam

can you cut green ones the upper part of the tree, drill a hole and plug it in and hopefully it grows?

yes, yes you can.
please send pictures of your new tree when you’ve done this.
:chuckles:

Yes,
I did the same with a cherry tree in our back garden. After drilling holes I added clippings from an apple tree and orange tree. Now the whole family can get their five a day without having to go shopping!

I’m assuming the above posts, should have smiley’s after them, including the OP.. leylandii, which those look to be are pretty hard to kill by topping. Though drilling holes in them and stuffing dead branches is probably going to be a good effort. Even if you top them, they will simply grow from just below where you chopped them off, as they just grow vertically.

In all honesty I chop them down, as there simply nasty and doing you no good (ppl plant them to get privacy), and plant a nice fruit tree (or two) instead. Plums tree grow remarkably fast and give huge crops.

I did the same with a cherry tree in our back garden. After drilling holes I added clippings from an apple tree and orange tree. Now the whole family can get their five a day without having to go shopping!

not actually that crazy an idea; we have a pear tree with 3 different varieties grafted on to it. May be trickier with different species mind…

Dave

Leylandii (which those look like) in common with many conifers doesn’t have many/any dormant buds in the old wood, so it could take years for anything significant to start growing from lower down on those trees. The best thing to do with them is to chop em down, burn em and plant something more interesting.

Leylandii/most conifers do not take any type of topping well. They normally look horrendous, fell those babies.

Those two have been knocked about in the past. Best plan would be to plant something new, something that you have chosen.

I’m afraid these won’t bud out at all, but if you really want to keep them, try bending down a couple of longer thinner branches and tie them to the trunk. It won’t look pretty, but they’re not really specimens ATM, are they?