Cotoneaster pollard?

Hello everyone

First time in here as I've recently moved house and have my very first garden! I've spent hours trawling the net and cannot find any advice specific to my issue so wondered if the experts in here could help.

I've inherited a 40ft high cotoneaster in the garden which I'd love to keep as its berries were just stunning. It looks as if the tree was pollarded to about head-height a few years ago and I would really like to take the height down again. The trouble is, the tree has all grown vertically from the pollard points as single (now very wide) branches. There seems to be no logical points at which to chop each branch to reduce the height, other than near the very top.

I'm therefore wondering whether my only course of action is to re-pollard back to the original growth points and, if I do is this likely to impact negatively on the tree?

Any info would be delightfully received.

Many thanks

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Brenners. I apologise for the doubt but are you sure it's a Cotoneaster? The overall height for them is around 12ft and they are more of a shrub than a tree. Your description sounds more like a Sorbus, commonly known as a Rowan or Mountain Ash.

 

Hello!

It's been looked at by a professional gardener and a tree surgeon who both immediately identified it as such. According to a number of sources online, there are a few species that can grow very tall (eg, wikipedia) so I'm pretty happy we've got the correct species

 

Hi
you are correct it is a probably and yes I have one at the bottom of the garden about 30 ft high , I should imagine the tree surgeon is more knowledgeable to know when to pollard something I have never done but he will have to cut soon as it will be making new growth over the next month or two

Cotoneaster 'Cornubia

 

Thank-you

I've lopped the tree right back to the old pollard point so fingers crossed it's just in time for some new spring growth to appear.

Best wishes,

 

it should work from the old point , you will need to give it a rose granular feed about March time , it will help cheer it up, if you get any whippy/spindly growth just take out with the secateurs as and when .

thanks for getting back to us .

Spruce

 

I stand corrected and have learnt something new. I didn't realise how big some could grow.