Is it possible to restrict the size of a tree?
Pretty Pink Flowers
Posts: 37
Hello. Can anyone please tell me if it is possible to prune a tree in order to restrict it's size?
I have a beautiful white flowering dogwood tree (Cornus Florida). It's quite small at the moment (just over 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide). It is planted about 6 feet or so from my neighbour's fence and about 8 feet from my house. I don't know how old it is. I've been told that it can grow to 15-30 feet tall and 10-20 feet wide.
At the moment it is fine, but I'm concerned how large it will get in time. As it grows, is it possible for me to prune this tree to keep it within my garden and not touching my house? I'm not sure how well dogwoods respond to pruning and I don't want to kill it off as it is a really lovely tree. Also, any chance the roots could be damaging to my house?
I'm asking now as if it does need to be (re)moved it's at a more manageable size to do so now before it gets huge and becomes a problem.
Thank you for your help.
Posts
It doesn't sound like a particularly large or vigorous tree. I think a normal trim/prune/shape every couple of years will be perfectly ok to keep it's size manageable.
Depending on the variety, dogwood grow to different sizes, so when it blooms, take a picture and go online or to a nursery to find out which one it is.
Cornus florida is more of a tree, not one of those dogwoods that get cut to the ground each year.
It is grown for flowers not colourful winter stems. If it's not too late I'd move it, it gets fairly large (not enormous) and the shape might be spoiled by too much cutting plus maybe you'd lose the flowers to the knife.
I've always loved these but too dry and alkaline here to do it justice
In the sticks near Peterborough
Cornus florida is gorgeous ... one of my favourites but it wouldn't like my soil. It is an elegant tree and would look horrid if cut hard back.
This article re it's growth and proximity to buildings may be of interest.
https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1656105/flowering-dogwood-cornus-florida-house-foundation-ok
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thank you for all the replies!
I've recently bought this house and in trying to sort the overgrown garden I'm finding all these weird and wonderful plants!
I suspect this dogwood has been planted fairly recently and I can see where someone has pruned it in the past. I don't really mind the height it might grow to as there are no other 'tall' plants in the back garden (above 2m) and it would be nice to have a tree for some shade, but I can foresee the width being a potential problem unless it can be regularly pruned to keep it 'in bounds' so to speak.
The thing is, I don't have anywhere else to move it if it can't be pruned width wise. I have a rather long, but narrow garden and it just won't accommodate a 20 foot wide tree. I've tried to look up the rate of growth for this type of dogwood and all I can find is 'average'. I'm not sure what that means, but perhaps it will be another 10-20 years before height and width become a potential 'problem'?
I'd hate to loose the tree as I think it's going to be a real stunner come Spring time.
Thank you for the link Dovefromabove
It's just a lump of bare stems at the moment (otherwise I'd post a pic). There was a faded, brittle, half buried tag next to this plant and it said 'Cornus Florida' with a photo of the white flowering tree. So if the tag is correct I think that's what I'm looking at here. (We shall find out in Spring I guess!
)
I was so excited to find this in the garden, I hope it does well here with my acid soil. My neighbour has a few large shrubs and a small tree on his side of the fence in that location, so I don't mind my tree branches going over a bit as he'll hardly notice. The problem would be more the branches growing into my house. There is a single story extension about 8-10 feet from the tree, so if the tree grows above that then the branches will have more space by extending over the roof there (not sure if that's ideal though?). How much damage could a dogwood branch cause if it were to come crashing down?
No worries Hazel -1.
I have been looking at the coloured stem dogwoods in the local garden centre, and they look lovely for a bit of winter colour!! Once I get the garden sorted, I might go for a red one (Cornus Alba Sibirica).