Leylandii out of control

Dave I know about Xylems and Phloems thank you very much and you are still wrong about domestic strength Glyphosate killing a mature conifer, and if I were Pilchards neighbours I would MUCH rather see a row of GREEN trees rather than brown ones.

 

The last thing you want in your garden is a dead leylandii. Once the foliage dries (as would happen very quickly when the tree is dead), leylandii is extremely flammable. It goes up like petrol, and is about as easy to light. I know this because we had a leylandii hedge at our last house, and I used to burn the clippings in my incinerator bin. I used to use them to get the bin going, and more than a few times I singed my eyebrows lighting the stuff (I'm really no exaggerating).

Apart from the risk of accidental fire, there is the risk of arson. There was a thread on here a few weeks ago where someone had lots of damage done after some toe rags set a bin alight, and it got hold of their leylandiis. The photo of the aftermath is really quite scary.

How big is this tree? If you were to chop it down, would it hit anything that could break (the house)? If not I'd just wait til everyone is out of the way and then saw it down. If you do it yourself, get a strong bloke and a rope, tie the rope as high up the trunk as you can get, get strong bloke to pull as hard as he can on the rope in the direction you want it to fall, and then cut from as low down as you can get, starting the cut on the opposite side. Be prepared to drop everything and run like hell, and make sure your strong assistant is also fit enough to run away too. My dad and I have felled the odd tree (we're not professionals) and usually it goes to plan, but not always. One time, my dad was standing on top of his arbour with the chainsaw on the go, I was in the garden on the rope, and things didn't go to plan. My dad was bowled off the arbour, dropped the chainsaw, and managed to save himself by grabbing the branch of another tree and swinging out of the way like a monkey, and I had to run faster than I've ever ran in my life as this great 30-40ft tall mass was rapidly closing in on me.

 

I cant deny any of that! Shiney, I believe in a doctrine overwhelming tactical force!

Overwhelm defences before they have a chance to respond. Works in love, war, sport and weeds!

hap feet

 

I tend to agree with the majority on this one - keep the trees as they are until you can afford to remove them completely. Killing them (if you can) would only lead to them being prone to failure and causing potential harm or injury to something or someone nearby.