Alberta Palm...I mean spruce

To start, I would never do this to a spruce tree, but these were planted in a terrible location & they are my neighbor's trees centre planted on the property line. If they had left them not trimmed up, we would not be able to get in the back yard. When we moved into this house 9 years ago, the trees where trimmed up to about 6 ft. The bows continued to grow & hang down onto their garage roof and would scratch vehicles on the drive way. When the neighbor asked if we could trim them higher, I took the opportunity to go high enough to allow a dramatically different amount of sunlight in for my roses in the front yard. It's amazing how much more light comes through. I'm very excited to see how much better the roses will bloom this year.




This message was edited Mar 30, 2008 3:00 PM

I am not sure what you mean by this post but we do have a large everygreen that we prune from the bottom to make room for our cars in the driveway.....it goes give us a bit more sun in our front yard garden as well.

Trust me JoannaB, I was just in Miami and those spruce trees do not look like palm trees!

I just got rid of a huge spruce tree so I know what you mean about looking forward to more light.

Theresa

I'd totally remove those trees as they are a potential hazard, have debris and are on the property line. A Serbian Spruce is more appropriate for there.

Here'z palm trees in Seattle at a Doughnut joint.

If they were my trees, I would remove them. They are the neighbor's trees, which (the same people) had planted 30+ years ago, centred on the property line. They had quotes to remove them, but felt it was too expensive. Their front yard has 4 more spruce trees & they are always asking about plant material that they can grow in their front yard. It was a very poor choice of trees for the yard size. When we move in, 9 years ago, the trees between the yards made it near impossible to walk into the backyard. They also damaged the shingles of our house. I wish they would remove them completely. I had asked if they would mind if I trimmed them, so we cut the bows high enough up that we wouldn't have to deal with it for a few years. I'm not sure how it will affect the trees, since over half the bows are gone.