Conifer Trees

Conifer Trees

Asked on 9 Jul, 2008

I have several 40foot + conifer trees near my garden. Will cutting them down by about a third help to stop them taking all the water from the surrounding area and will they still grow back. They are probably 40 years old or more.

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Spritzhenry

9 Jul, 2008

They will think that you have pruned them, and will probably grow back to a certain extent, though Conifers don't like being hard-pruned, so they may stay plain ugly. My neighbour had about a third taken off his Poplar trees - all it did was make them SOOOO ugly to have to look at for about a year.. They are growing back quite quickly this year. The roots are obviously not going to be affected if you do cut them back, so I don't think that they will reduce the amount.of water they take up.

Snowdrop

11 Jul, 2008

Do you really want to keep yor conifers??? Be brave and get rid of them, feed the soil and plant something nicer that doesn't grow so big and is nicer to look at. Conifers take all the moisture and the taller they grow, like trees the more water they need so their roots( tho' fibrous) will get more and more . Pruning them will bring down the height for a while but make sure you prune them low enough for you to easily keep top cutting( in August)..so they say. They will still drink up what ever moisture and nutrients there are around. very little grows under conifers

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