What to do with these conifers

Hi all,

looking for some general advice re: these conifers. They’ve grown tremendously in the few years I’ve been here and are now blocking quite a substantial amount of light. I’d like to reduce height but heard they won’t recover if I do this. They’re all brown for the bottom 1/3 too.

Can these be shortened, or will they need to be removed completely?

Thanks

 

Once they have gone brown like that they never re-grow. Conifers do not have undeveloped buds on the branches only on green shoots. Personally I have always found that cutting them down to a reasonable size leaves them looking ugly. I would remove them altogether, but then I confess to disliking conifers all together so perhaps not the best person to advise on keeping.

 

I agree with Palustris, if you trim them down they will look grim.
They're already brown on the bottom half so removal would be my choice.
You would then have some space to grow nice shrubs like choisya mexican orange blossom (evergreen with good fragrant flowers)

 

Chainsaw time. And your neighbours will be delighted too. So much more light.

 

I had a row of conifers like yours in the front garden between myself and next doors garden up until a few months ago. (Previous owner had planted them 15 years ago) Like you I wasn't sure what to do with them. I got a tree surgeon to look at them. He said if I reduced the height the would stay flat on top and look a bit silly. My choices were to chop at the trunk. Leaving a stump or have them taken out completely by roots as well. After much deliberation and advice on here we chose to have them removed roots too. It wasn't cheap but I'm really pleased I did now. The neighbour thanked me afterwards saying they had blocked out lots of light in their living room. I had to add lots of organic matter to the left over border after but now I have some lovely hedge plants growing. I agree with all above.

 

Super. Thank you for the advice all! Will try to get rid of them this week. Going to try it myself to begin with. I’ll keep you posted .

 

Hi. Out of curiosity, and only if you wouldn’t mind, could you let me know how much it cost to get a tree surgeon to remove them? Thanks.

 

That’s good to know. Thanks. Perhaps be better to get some quotes in then

 

Hi @Sophocles of course, our quote was £80 to cut off the tops reducing the height. £300 to cut to the trunk leaving the stumps and £400 to remove all completely. It took them around 2 hours and they cleaned up and took it all. We had 11 conifers in all. I hope this helps.

 

Unless you are very unlucky, it is very possible to remove these conifers oneself. We (my wife and I and we are in our mid 70's) have just removed a 42 metre long Leylandii hedge which was well over 18 feet tall. Getting rid of the debris was fairly easy. Having the space we shredded most of it. However previously we took it all down to our Re-cycling place. We bought 1 ton bags from Amazon (yes, I know ,sorry) filled one and stuffed it in the car (a Vauxhall Agila which is not a big vehicle by any means). It took a few trips but everything, including the stumps went there.
Best way is to remove all the branches so you are left with a bare trunk. Then cut that down to about 4 feet. Dig round and sever as many roots as you can. Use the remaining trunk as a lever to snap any ones which remain. Uncut ones become very obvious when you rock the trunk back and fro. Tools I used were a chain saw, a pair of really good loppers, a big wrecking bar and a sharp spade.