M
MattG
Guest
Hi Folks,
We have a mature Eucalyptus tree - I'm fairly sure it is a "gunnii" as it has roundy-oval greeny-grey leaves, sometimes drops a little peely bark from the thicker part of the boughs, has smooth light grey bark on younger branches and occasional small white flowers. In March 2014 the tree was about 50 feet high and I reduced it's height to about 30 feet at that time of year by just lopping the branches and making sure I left some young leaves and twigs on the tree. The tree survived my labours - and is now shooting back up. It must have about 8 feet of epicormic growth atop the pollards (there's about 6 of these) that I left, and plenty of nice lower side growth.
I'm obviously concerned to keep the tree in check - but not kill it - since for an amateur the original reduction I gave the tree was not a particularly easy job. I'm now thinking of reducing the height by about another 5 feet - but of course leave plenty of side greenery on the tree.
Would now be a bad time to prune/attack the tree again? I'm just kind of anxious to start on this work as the tree is growing at a frightening rate and because we live in the Fens in the UK - which is very flat and often windy and for the next months it is very difficult to predict when a nice calm weekend will next come along - in other words - I'd like to make a start whenever I can!
Personally I'm think the tree is pretty robust and will tolerate the reduction - since it recovered fine from the last far more drastic cut. However I'd really appreciate some sound advice on the subject - so can I start this job whenever - or should I be patient and wait till next spring or summer?
all advice and tips appreciated,
Matt
We have a mature Eucalyptus tree - I'm fairly sure it is a "gunnii" as it has roundy-oval greeny-grey leaves, sometimes drops a little peely bark from the thicker part of the boughs, has smooth light grey bark on younger branches and occasional small white flowers. In March 2014 the tree was about 50 feet high and I reduced it's height to about 30 feet at that time of year by just lopping the branches and making sure I left some young leaves and twigs on the tree. The tree survived my labours - and is now shooting back up. It must have about 8 feet of epicormic growth atop the pollards (there's about 6 of these) that I left, and plenty of nice lower side growth.
I'm obviously concerned to keep the tree in check - but not kill it - since for an amateur the original reduction I gave the tree was not a particularly easy job. I'm now thinking of reducing the height by about another 5 feet - but of course leave plenty of side greenery on the tree.
Would now be a bad time to prune/attack the tree again? I'm just kind of anxious to start on this work as the tree is growing at a frightening rate and because we live in the Fens in the UK - which is very flat and often windy and for the next months it is very difficult to predict when a nice calm weekend will next come along - in other words - I'd like to make a start whenever I can!
Personally I'm think the tree is pretty robust and will tolerate the reduction - since it recovered fine from the last far more drastic cut. However I'd really appreciate some sound advice on the subject - so can I start this job whenever - or should I be patient and wait till next spring or summer?
all advice and tips appreciated,
Matt
