shapping yaupon holly trees

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plant1today Sand Springs, OK Jul 05, 2007

how to shape yaupon hollys pom pom

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WeeNel Ayrshire Scotland, United Kingdom Jul 10, 2007

Hi Plant1today, I dont recognise your particular Holly by the name, however if it is a true holly, these are real easy to shape, but you have to be carefull not to cut all the foliage off the branches, and prob best done over a couple of years/seasons, I did mine as such, first, I cut away all the lower branches really close to the stem, up to the hight of stem I required, stand back and look as you go, you cant replace the branches once you remove them so go easy till you get the feel of the size/look you want, it is best to use secetuers by the way as the leves go brown if you cut them in half and this allows you to prune much easier/slower for a beginner, after the stem is the right hight, start at the bottom branch and shorten them to the width of the ball shape you want, all around the shrub, better to have to cut more off than make it too small, work your way up the higher branches till you feel happy with the shape and hight, keep steping back to see the shape, good idea never to leave a stem without any leaves as you want the branch to take up moisture and form nice new foliage for the next year so it bushes out but stays tight in growth, and trimmed to size, now that mine are the shape and size I want, I just go with the secetuers and all that is needed is the lightest of pruneing, the nice new young foliage is so attractive and easy to prune, I only do mine now that it is shaped, once per year and that is normally early summer as I deadhead all the shrubs around the holly. Keep in mind that you could end up with big bare patches within the shape of the ball as you might have to remove a heavy foliaged branch, but within a couple of years and the right pruneing, this will be filled in with new branches that develope from the cut ones, that is the idea when you first do the shape, looking for branches that will fill out and next year you may just need to trim off the ends, dont be afraid to snip inside the ball to get branches to make new shoots for filling in the gaps, it wont be shaped and tight growing for a couple of years unless you are reshapeing a previously shaped one, mine was done from a tall tree and I had to deside the leadder stem that I wanted, but in 3 years, it looked really good, so good luck, Oh you can get books on toperi from the librery if you want, I found they were a guide rather than a huge help but it got me started off OK, WeeNel.

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