Trees, Shrubs and Conifers: pruning evergreen shrubs, 1 by HoosierGreen

HoosierGreen wrote:
Here's a photo of yew foliage and berries that can form on female plants.


Susan: If your shrubs are yews, one fine day this spring (as early as March), you can take the pruners or loppers and cut them back as far as you like, remembering that they need some room to grow out and fill in again to look nice. I would cut them back about a foot farther than the size I would like them to be when they grow out again.

Be sure to do this drastic pruning early in the spring, before new growth starts so the plants will put all their energy into establishing themselves again. When I've done this, I always fertilize the shrubs after pruning to give them a boost.

(I learned this when I was just a teenager back in the 60s. An uncle worked for a nursery and showed us how to do this to our huge 25+ year-old foundation yews one spring. Unfortunately, our neighbor was so impressed with the appearance of the shrubs three months later ... after laughing at my dad for the stubs we had after the treatment... that he cut back all of his overgrown shrubs- in August. Every one of them died.)