Pruning garden willow tree
Discussion
Afternoon all
Since moving in 10 years ago our willow tree has (unsurprisingly) grown quite a bit.
It's gone from extending about half way across the garden to about 90% across, and is close to reaching out left side next door neighbour (the other side of the tree already extends well into the other side's garden).
Brochure pic
Pic just now
Ideally it would be trimmed along the purple line, but is this remotely feasible?
I did have a go hacking off a branch where the orange circle is, and it made virtually no difference except looking messy.
The reason I'm asking is my next door neighbour is getting a tree surgeon round to look at the oak tree (further down on the left) overhanging his garden, and has suggested he would contribute to a thinning/pruning of my willow.
It shades his garden a lot, so I get where he's coming from, and what to accommodate him if possible.
But I'm not sure if there is an option to prune a willow "a bit".
Can anyone share any experience?
(Context: My wife really likes the tree, and if she comes home from work to find a stick where the willow used to be, it will not go down particularly well)
Since moving in 10 years ago our willow tree has (unsurprisingly) grown quite a bit.
It's gone from extending about half way across the garden to about 90% across, and is close to reaching out left side next door neighbour (the other side of the tree already extends well into the other side's garden).
Brochure pic
Pic just now
Ideally it would be trimmed along the purple line, but is this remotely feasible?
I did have a go hacking off a branch where the orange circle is, and it made virtually no difference except looking messy.
The reason I'm asking is my next door neighbour is getting a tree surgeon round to look at the oak tree (further down on the left) overhanging his garden, and has suggested he would contribute to a thinning/pruning of my willow.
It shades his garden a lot, so I get where he's coming from, and what to accommodate him if possible.
But I'm not sure if there is an option to prune a willow "a bit".
Can anyone share any experience?
(Context: My wife really likes the tree, and if she comes home from work to find a stick where the willow used to be, it will not go down particularly well)
Willows really need to be pollarded every 4 years or so - they take all the green growth off and I suspect if you look closely at yours you will see some bigger knobbly bits where yours has been done in the past. Any tree surgeon will be able to take it right back to the old pollarding points. We have ours done at the start of spring and by mid-summer you wouldn't really know it had been done at all, it grows back incredibly quickly.
As said, if you don't do this then it will get very big, very quickly so definitely worth keeping on top of. We pay about £500 (East Berkshire) and it takes a couple of guys a day, most of which is getting rid of the cuttings.
As said, if you don't do this then it will get very big, very quickly so definitely worth keeping on top of. We pay about £500 (East Berkshire) and it takes a couple of guys a day, most of which is getting rid of the cuttings.
We had a very similar willow in our garden. We had a tree surgeon chap come and he pollarded it in March this year. I thought it would never grow back! Wrong - it has grown very well over the summer and looks again like a willow should. Will be getting it done every couple of years now. It grows incredibly quickly!
Thanks all,
Yes, I'm on the edge (geographically) of the weald, and definately on clay.
And yes, the tree has distinct knobbles some way back into the foliage. We've been here 10 years, and I think it was at least 5 years since pollarding before we moved in
(The garden was a mess as the parents had split, and were waiting for youngest to get to 18 before having to sell. So I doubt tree pollarding was high on the Mum's list)
All in all, i can cope with £500 I suppose, hopefully less than £1k.
Ian
Yes, I'm on the edge (geographically) of the weald, and definately on clay.
And yes, the tree has distinct knobbles some way back into the foliage. We've been here 10 years, and I think it was at least 5 years since pollarding before we moved in
(The garden was a mess as the parents had split, and were waiting for youngest to get to 18 before having to sell. So I doubt tree pollarding was high on the Mum's list)
All in all, i can cope with £500 I suppose, hopefully less than £1k.
Ian
deckster said:
Willows really need to be pollarded every 4 years or so - they take all the green growth off ....
The council did this to a willow tree on my regular walk - cut every single branch off of it back to the trunk. As I know nothing about trees, I thought that it was rotten and this was a precursor to cutting it down. I was very wrong and it regrew incredibly and a year later looked like a willow again.
Ian Geary said:
Thanks all,
Yes, I'm on the edge (geographically) of the weald, and definately on clay.
And yes, the tree has distinct knobbles some way back into the foliage. We've been here 10 years, and I think it was at least 5 years since pollarding before we moved in
(The garden was a mess as the parents had split, and were waiting for youngest to get to 18 before having to sell. So I doubt tree pollarding was high on the Mum's list)
All in all, i can cope with £500 I suppose, hopefully less than £1k.
Ian
I paid £200 for ours to be done, including cutting the stuff that could be logged into 30cm logs and the rest chipped and taken away. Took them about 3 hours (3 men).Yes, I'm on the edge (geographically) of the weald, and definately on clay.
And yes, the tree has distinct knobbles some way back into the foliage. We've been here 10 years, and I think it was at least 5 years since pollarding before we moved in
(The garden was a mess as the parents had split, and were waiting for youngest to get to 18 before having to sell. So I doubt tree pollarding was high on the Mum's list)
All in all, i can cope with £500 I suppose, hopefully less than £1k.
Ian
Well, update time. Next door's tree bloke (neighbour on the left) has visited.
We had agreed a modest prune of the branch heading towards next door: definitely not green, happy with purple, would need convincing about orange
This is how it looks today
Vs this morning
I might try to compare some before/after pics of what we marked up, but frankly it looks ridiculous to us now.
It's changed the character of the tree quite markedly from the lawn and patio area, as the view of the tree from the left side (where we'd sit) is now just truncated branches.
The next door bloke did want more light, and less leaves in his pond so I think he'll be happy enough. (Our gardens face north east, so the tree blocks light to their garden for much of the morning)
I guess there's worse things going on in the world, and pollarding/managing a large tree is going to involve change, but I would have preferred to leave it as is in hindsight.
I'm paying the £250 ish that was quoted (about 3 hours - they got rid of everything and tidied up well), though I think next door has blown whatever chance he had of it ever being trimmed again. Because no matter how long the branches grow, they're never going to be longer than my wife's memory!
So it will just be a case of seeing what happens to the tree in future now (once it's grown back a bit)
We had agreed a modest prune of the branch heading towards next door: definitely not green, happy with purple, would need convincing about orange
This is how it looks today
Vs this morning
I might try to compare some before/after pics of what we marked up, but frankly it looks ridiculous to us now.
It's changed the character of the tree quite markedly from the lawn and patio area, as the view of the tree from the left side (where we'd sit) is now just truncated branches.
The next door bloke did want more light, and less leaves in his pond so I think he'll be happy enough. (Our gardens face north east, so the tree blocks light to their garden for much of the morning)
I guess there's worse things going on in the world, and pollarding/managing a large tree is going to involve change, but I would have preferred to leave it as is in hindsight.
I'm paying the £250 ish that was quoted (about 3 hours - they got rid of everything and tidied up well), though I think next door has blown whatever chance he had of it ever being trimmed again. Because no matter how long the branches grow, they're never going to be longer than my wife's memory!
So it will just be a case of seeing what happens to the tree in future now (once it's grown back a bit)
Ian Geary said:
I'm not sure where on the scale next door's chap is:
Qualified arborist <--> some bloke that owns a chainsaw
You should be more sure now! Although you did ignore all the advice. Much of the price of tree work is setting up and clearing up. Someone half decent could have done a proper job not just hack it back for not much more.Qualified arborist <--> some bloke that owns a chainsaw
"Next doors bloke" didn't have a clue what he was doing. Willows need to be pollarded hard. He's just tickled the tree and make it look rubbish.
Seriously. Get somebody qualified in. Your neighbour will be delighted and the tree will thank you for it.
This is what it should look like after it's been pollarded. Within a few months you won't know it was done, and you'll need to do it again in a few years, but keep on top of it and and not only do you keep it to a manageable size but you can maintain a lovely shape rather than yours which, in the nicest possible way, is a complete mess.
Seriously. Get somebody qualified in. Your neighbour will be delighted and the tree will thank you for it.
This is what it should look like after it's been pollarded. Within a few months you won't know it was done, and you'll need to do it again in a few years, but keep on top of it and and not only do you keep it to a manageable size but you can maintain a lovely shape rather than yours which, in the nicest possible way, is a complete mess.
deckster said:
"Next doors bloke" didn't have a clue what he was doing. Willows need to be pollarded hard. He's just tickled the tree and make it look rubbish.
Seriously. Get somebody qualified in. Your neighbour will be delighted and the tree will thank you for it.
This is what it should look like after it's been pollarded. Within a few months you won't know it was done, and you'll need to do it again in a few years, but keep on top of it and and not only do you keep it to a manageable size but you can maintain a lovely shape rather than yours which, in the nicest possible way, is a complete mess.
This is my experience too, light trims don't work with willow. However, convincing wives of this, especially if they planted the tree, is not easy!Seriously. Get somebody qualified in. Your neighbour will be delighted and the tree will thank you for it.
This is what it should look like after it's been pollarded. Within a few months you won't know it was done, and you'll need to do it again in a few years, but keep on top of it and and not only do you keep it to a manageable size but you can maintain a lovely shape rather than yours which, in the nicest possible way, is a complete mess.
Without management they grow until limbs split and fall.
Your neighbour seems to be being more reasonable than some might be?
I often see pollarded willows along river banks and when freshly done they look horrific, as if they've been butchered. But the trees happily spring back to life. It seems odd but it's the way willows are done.
Talking of amateurs, they usually treat the tree like a human head and give it a 'hair cut'. Some trees on a nearby playing field were done last year, and cut into perfect spheres!
Talking of amateurs, they usually treat the tree like a human head and give it a 'hair cut'. Some trees on a nearby playing field were done last year, and cut into perfect spheres!
To be fair to the tree bloke: he did (broadly) what he was asked to do, which was cut back the branch stretching across the garden.
We perhaps just didn't anticipate how rubbish it would look.
So it wasn't the case that this was his advice to us, and if he'd advised us a hard pollarding was the best solution, he would have been ignored, and not allowed back.
Ultimately, if the options are "dabble a bit " or "leave it alone" we should have left it alone.
If my wife had come home to the picture below...well... It would have made Kyiv look peaceful frankly.
Yes, I'm sure the longer term benefits are there about pollarding, but it was liked "the way it was", and I suspect any long term lessons about not pollarding a tree like this are just going to have to be learned the "hard" way in this household.
Silver lining: if the bits that were cut back come back to life reasonably quickly, it might demonstrate a hard pollarding isn't the end of the world.
Ian
We perhaps just didn't anticipate how rubbish it would look.
So it wasn't the case that this was his advice to us, and if he'd advised us a hard pollarding was the best solution, he would have been ignored, and not allowed back.
Ultimately, if the options are "dabble a bit " or "leave it alone" we should have left it alone.
If my wife had come home to the picture below...well... It would have made Kyiv look peaceful frankly.
Yes, I'm sure the longer term benefits are there about pollarding, but it was liked "the way it was", and I suspect any long term lessons about not pollarding a tree like this are just going to have to be learned the "hard" way in this household.
Silver lining: if the bits that were cut back come back to life reasonably quickly, it might demonstrate a hard pollarding isn't the end of the world.
Ian
deckster said:
"Next doors bloke" didn't have a clue what he was doing. Willows need to be pollarded hard. He's just tickled the tree and make it look rubbish.
Seriously. Get somebody qualified in. Your neighbour will be delighted and the tree will thank you for it.
This is what it should look like after it's been pollarded. Within a few months you won't know it was done, and you'll need to do it again in a few years, but keep on top of it and and not only do you keep it to a manageable size but you can maintain a lovely shape rather than yours which, in the nicest possible way, is a complete mess.
Seriously. Get somebody qualified in. Your neighbour will be delighted and the tree will thank you for it.
This is what it should look like after it's been pollarded. Within a few months you won't know it was done, and you'll need to do it again in a few years, but keep on top of it and and not only do you keep it to a manageable size but you can maintain a lovely shape rather than yours which, in the nicest possible way, is a complete mess.
Dift said:
ewanjp said:
Be careful with willows getting large if you've got clay soil. The previous owner of my current house did not pay attention and let one get from 5m to 17m which cause some subsidence in the front of the house...
Out of interest, how close to the house is/was the willow?Here is a handy table from my book on subsidence.
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