Castlewellen Gold

It shouldn't be too difficult to do yourself as long as you have a safe platform to stand on. Of course, that depends on how low you want to cut it.

The professionals on here may give you more detailed advice than me but here goes . It's not really for me to say but I think that £200 to shape a 15ft Leylandii is excessive - sorry, professionals :flag:

Castlewellen has a much more compact growth than the ordinary Leylandii and tends to have a slightly more upward growth. Reducing height is usually not a problem. Take the central trunk out about 6" below where you want the ultimate height and then carefully trim the outer parts to hide the bare upper part of the trunk. This may be a bit of a problem if the tree has grown outward too much and left the look too open.

With shaping the sides you have to be careful. If you cut back past the green growth it will not regrow any leaves. So have a look to see how much you want to reduce the width. If it will take it back too far then you can't do it.

Leylandii, in general, take well to shaping when you start when they are young and not so well when they have got out of hand. If you still think that you can do it successfully remember that you need to be very careful when working above ground level.

Good luck :gnthb:

 

I think you may have a problem if it is already that wide. You may only be able to cut it back about 9". You will need to open the branches out and see where the brown wood starts. I would be inclined to leave about half the green growth and not take it back too far. It may still look unsightly.

There is no harm in trying it as long as you have in the back of your mind that you may have to chop the whole thing down. Then it would be an enormous amount of wood and leaf to get rid of. Just shortening it would be no problem but, then again, it may look unbalanced if you don't reduce the width.

 

If you have to take it down, are you going to try and get the stump out? How thick is the trunk at the bottom?

If you think you may be able to get the stump out then make sure that you leave the trunk at least 4' high but remove all the branches. Then, as you dig around the stump you will be able to use the trunk for leverage - pulling and pushing. Dig around the stump at least 2' - 3' from the tree and cut the roots as you come across them. The side roots may be thick but you can cut through them. The problem will be the taproot which you should eventually be able to get to with the digging and the rocking of the trunk.

What will you do with all the branches and wood? It will be a lot more than you would expect.