Reverse Pollarding
Francisco
Posts: 2
Good afternoon,
We recently moved to a new house. We have two Tilia (Linden) trees in the garden.
Normally, we find the Tilia tree lovely and beautiful, but these two trees have been subject to a type of pruning called pollarding. As a result they have long horizontal branches with funny looking balls in the ends from where many tinny branches grow during the spring. Something similar to this:
http://www.mwiarda.nl/hagen/Tilia_leilinde_snoeien_grt.JPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding
In our opinion, the pollarded trees look very sad and artificial. We would love to let these trees grow more naturally and also have a natural look.
We tried to just let the branches grow without any punning, but all the new branches are concentrated around these balls in the end of each long horizontal branch and on the top of the tree.
We thought about cutting the balls in each ends entirely, but we are worried that this might be to stressful for the tree. What would you recommend?
We would love to hear your expert advice!
Many thanks in advance for your kind help!
Best regards,
Francisco
Posts
Hi Francisco, I'd be inclined to take all the branches right back to the main trunk. That's the usual process for pollarding. For mature trees this shouldn't be a problem. It's common where people have large trees in a small garden and want to keep the tree, or in an awkward site - for instance, where the tree may cause a lot of shade.
Others may have a different opinion
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Many of the oldest trees in the country are pollards.
No Jo
I quite like a pollard shape.
I don't think you could ever reverse that, the only possibility I can see is to cut it to the ground and allow one shoot to grow. Given the nature of limes this would be an on-going cutting job
In the sticks near Peterborough
I probably didn't read the OP's query properly either. I made an assumption he just wanted to make the tree look better. I should also have been clearer - I meant cut back to the trunk and then just leave the trees to do their thing after that.
I like a pollarded tree too nut. If they're done properly,it can look really good.
Certainly far better than the half hearted slash and hack job many people do instead 
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
We might pollard a lime. Some idiot planted it under the electric wires 60 years ago.
Or maybe there was no electricity here 60 years ago. We don't have gas or drains now. Or much of a broadband connection
In the sticks near Peterborough
I love a well-pollarded tree if it's regularly maintained - it's when they're allowed to over-grow that they look awful. However, a good arboriculturist should be able to restore and rejuvenate an overgrown pollard.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Dear Fairygirl, pansyface, Joe_the_Gardner, jo47, nutcutlet and Dovefromabove,
Many thanks for your answers. I understand from pansyface's post that it will probably be difficult to give back a natural (non-pollarded) look to the tree.
Fairygirl, when you suggest that I cut the branches all the way back to the trunk, and let the tree do its thing, do you think that this will make the tree eventually look like a natural non-pollarded tree? Or will it simply look better "in a pollarded way"?
Thanks again for your answers! Best wishes!
I think 'look better in a pollarded way'. When I was a child there were pollarded limes all along the sides of our road. The council used to cut them back every autumn and in winter there were these strange knobbly trunks, but then in the spring the new growth began to emerge. There was a tree right outside my bedroom window, the new leaves looked delicious. (Still think the same about new beech leaves now, many, many years later!) All summer they were jolly green lollipops, then the leaves fell and the cycle began again.
You could try choosing 2 or 3 stems to grow on and removing the rest, then if it worked you would regain something more like a natural tree but with a 'ball joint' in the middle. The problem is, that because they grow so fast, the branches don't have any strength and are prone to break off where they emerge from the trunk. If they do though you are still back to pollard square one. The good thing (bad from yor point of view?) is that pollarded trees are practically immortal as they renew every year!
Francisco - here's the tree across the path from me. You can see where it's cut back each year right to the trunk, or thereabouts ( around Feb) and the new growth which results. It's a Maple, and would be enormous if left to it's own devices and would need to be taken out otherwise. It's nice to have mature trees around so I think it's a good compromise, and looks good when the foliage comes out
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
thinning out some of the branches to make it look more 'natural' might work, you'd have to keep the regrowth under control otherwise it would end up looking like that again quickly