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Can I cut in half

Peter 126Peter 126 Posts: 11
in Plants
Hi All,

I have a row of the attached photo along the back of my property, They cause a lot of light reduction where my vegetable plot is. My question is can I cut them down to 10ft an use as a fence (will they survive) or should I have them removed and put in a fence (expensive option) They are currently around 25ft high. I think they are Leylandii
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Posts

  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    You can cut them down, but they'll be really ugly, especially if you cut back all the sides as well. You'd need a serious bit of kit for it too- the trunks will be very thick. They don't green up once cut back into brown wood.
    Just cutting the height won't really help anyway, because the width alone is taking up a lot of room and will drastically affect the moisture level of nearby soil.
    There's something else there too - on the right of the 2nd pic, but the photo isn't clear enough to make it out.

    The best solution would be to remove them. 
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • AnniDAnniD Posts: 12,585
    Assuming they are on your property, you can reduce them, but they will probably look a bit messy on the top. Remember that if you reduce them down to 10 feet they will probably grow another couple of feet in a very short time, so you might want to consider cutting them down even further to allow for growth over the next few months.
    Have a look at this, there is a section on pruning an established Leylandii hedge.
    https://www.leylandii.com/faqs/

    I'm sure there are a couple of members on here who have done this, hopefully they can help from personal experience  :)
  • bcpathomebcpathome Posts: 1,313
    Quite right .Take them out if you can. Our neighbour grows them and they grow like Topsey .They grew across our driveway and we had to cut them back to make room for the car and we are left with brown sticks on our side ,it looks awful but at least we can use the drive. If you take the tops off they will just bush out more .Get rid .
  • Arthur1Arthur1 Posts: 542
    Please remember that currently it may contain birds nests. People don’t like leylandii but birds do.
  • Slow-wormSlow-worm Posts: 1,630
    Echo Kate here, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to do it at nesting time, ok after August I think?
  • Arthur1Arthur1 Posts: 542
    The legalities are a grey area. There's a lot of tree work going on at the moment unfortunately.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited June 2022
    Slow-worm said:
    Echo Kate here, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to do it at nesting time, ok after August I think?

    It's not illegal, but you are required to check for nests before works.

    You can do whatever you like if they are your own trees.
  • bcpathomebcpathome Posts: 1,313
    Well I had assumed that the tree cutter/ remover would have checked for birds beforehand………..unless they are 10 years old thoughtless ( not that ALL 10 year olds are thoughtless or daft ) .
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    We had a tree chappie come to top our inherited, neglected Leylandii hedge in early spring before the blackbirds got nesting in it. He took a good few metres off the height. It hasn’t bushed out. He also trimmed the sides, if done lightly and not into brown wood it’s fine. If you can trim the sides on a slight angle so it’s wider at the bottom than the top (called ‘battering’) that helps more rain and light reach the bottom of the hedge and keeps it greener. 
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • mikeymustardmikeymustard Posts: 495
    There's only one sort of "battering" I'd like to do to them!
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