By Plant12
United Kingdom 
my yew tree hasnt looked great all this year since the very bitter winter in fact i thot it was dead until a few weeks ago tiny green buds sprouted all over it at the end of the branches still dosnt look great tho - do you think it will live now ??
11 Aug, 2011
Answers
Would suggest you cut it back and let the new growth grow
11 Aug, 2011
Yew is one of those evergreens that you can trim well back and they come away beautifully. We have a very old tree in the garden and when we arrived it had straggly growth at the bottom. After taking advice I cut off all the lower branches to a height of 5'. I cut them right back to the trunk. I now have a green pillar instead of an eyesore. Good luck with your tree. A wren raised a family in the cutest little nest you ever did see about a metre up from ground level. A bit bigger than a tennis ball but fully round with a little round doorway at the front. She made it between the branches of the new growth.
12 Aug, 2011
Wish I'd seen that little nest Scotsgran!
12 Aug, 2011
I tried and failed to get a photograph which I could use but it was on the north side of the tree and yew is very dark anyway. I used the flash after she had gone but it was useless or more to the point my photography skills need a lot of honing. When I was tidying up the compost bin area the other day i came on another nest.No eggs or babies so I suppose if there were any they would have hatched by now. It is in a plastic pot which had fallen down between the wall and the bin. It could be a robin. Our mother and 8 chicks were back sunning themselves on the wall today. They all came down in to our garden before going up and settling in the foliage of the montana clematis growing over the pergola. i waste such a lot of time oohing and ahhing at these birds I can't get any work done in case I miss something. lol.
12 Aug, 2011
Eight baby robins? Ahhh!! We have one, just beginning to get an orange breast but you can still see the baby speckles underneath.
12 Aug, 2011
Sorry Steragram that was a senior moment, we have a mother and 8 baby pheasants.
13 Aug, 2011
Yes it should be OK if it's now got new shoots on it now, Plant 12. It's probably been lacking in water at some point, as well. Have you just planted it, or is it an old, established tree? I don't think the hard winter would have bothered it, actually. I don't know where you live, but we live in Cumbria, not noted for its warm winters, and our young yew wasn't touched by the cold at all. So I would suspect lack of water.
11 Aug, 2011