Pollarding Flowering Cherry Trees

[Ermin Trude]

Has anyone any experience of pollarding cherry trees please?

We have a couple of very large cherry trees in the garden with lots of
bough but very little leaf and thin covering of blossom each spring.

I am minded to pollard the trees to make them far more compact and to
reduce bough length in doing so. Hopefully this would also concentrate
the blossom.

Has anyone tried this and with what result? I'll forgo the bloosom for
the first year but would hope to see it in future years - for this reason
I'd not be doing both at the same time.

Thanks

[Charlie Pridham]

One across the road from us was given some chain saw pruning, it
flowered a bit the following year was better the next and back to normal
by the third year

--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
National collections of Clematis viticella & Lapageria rosea

[Ermin Trude]

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:42:14 +0100, Chris Hogg wrote:

> Whatever you do, make sure you do it in the summer, to minimise the
> possibility of infection by silver leaf or canker. In summer, wounds
> have a chance to heal while the tree is in growth, but in the winter the
> tree is dormant and wounds remain open for a great deal longer, allowing
> infection to enter.

Thanks Chris - have you done any pollarding yourself or is it just
pruning?

[Ermin Trude]

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:57:50 +0100, Charlie Pridham wrote:

> On 10/08/2016 16:47, Ermin Trude wrote:
>> Has anyone any experience of pollarding cherry trees please?
>>
>> We have a couple of very large cherry trees in the garden with lots of
>> bough but very little leaf and thin covering of blossom each spring.
>>
>> I am minded to pollard the trees to make them far more compact and to
>> reduce bough length in doing so. Hopefully this would also concentrate
>> the blossom.
>>
>> Has anyone tried this and with what result? I'll forgo the bloosom for
>> the first year but would hope to see it in future years - for this
>> reason I'd not be doing both at the same time.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
> One across the road from us was given some chain saw pruning, it
> flowered a bit the following year was better the next and back to normal
> by the third year

Thanks Charlie - did they just prune it or pollard it?

[Martin Brown]

Pollarding always looks a bit too brutal and ugly for my taste.

I haven't ever done this but a neighbour had some professional tree
surgeons in to prune some very large flowering cherry trees - getting on
for 50 years old and 40+' high. Spectacular in flower but shading their
entire garden out. They recommended cutting back by about 1/3 to 1/2 and
the owner chose to have them cut back by 1/4 to 1/3. I was impressed how
they did it with a guy on the ground directing the bloke with the
chainsaw where to cut out to make a nice balanced tree frame.

The trees quickly bounched back - responding to pruning with rapid
growth. Flowering was less prolific in the first year. She now
understands why they wanted to take a bit more off.

My instinct is that it is already a bit late for such brutal pruning
this year because of the risk of silver leaf infection in the wounds. It
is a tricky balancing act between not disturbing nesting birds and
avoiding potentially disastrous fungal infections.

Regards,
Martin Brown

[Charlie Pridham]

It was reduced in size all over by two thirds, the branches at the point
of being cut were around a 6" diameter It looked very stumpy when done
but as I said before it recovered over a couple of years and you now
cant tell it was touched (actually needs doing again!)

[Ermin Trude]

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 22:55:29 +0100, Charlie Pridham wrote:

> On 10/08/2016 18:21, Ermin Trude wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:57:50 +0100, Charlie Pridham wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/08/2016 16:47, Ermin Trude wrote:
>>>> Has anyone any experience of pollarding cherry trees please?

>>> normal by the third year
>>
>> Thanks Charlie - did they just prune it or pollard it?
>>
> It was reduced in size all over by two thirds, the branches at the point
> of being cut were around a 6" diameter It looked very stumpy when done
> but as I said before it recovered over a couple of years and you now
> cant tell it was touched (actually needs doing again!)

Thanks again. It sounds like the situation I have though maybe the
boughs here are somewhat greater diameter.

Certainly I think its going to be worth a try as a pruning exercise first
with pollarding later if necessary.

[Ermin Trude]

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 21:30:57 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

> On 10/08/2016 18:20, Ermin Trude wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:42:14 +0100, Chris Hogg wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:47:53 -0500, Ermin Trude
>>> <ermin...@invalid.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Has anyone any experience of pollarding cherry trees please?
>>>

>>> Whatever you do, make sure you do it in the summer, to minimise the
>>> possibility of infection by silver leaf or canker.
>

> Pollarding always looks a bit too brutal and ugly for my taste.

I can undersatnd that - but it can be a good option on a lot of hardwoods.

>
> I haven't ever done this but a neighbour had some professional tree
> surgeons in to prune some very large flowering cherry trees - getting on
> for 50 years old and 40+' high. Spectacular in flower but shading their
> entire garden out. They recommended cutting back by about 1/3 to 1/2 and
> the owner chose to have them cut back by 1/4 to 1/3.
>

> The trees quickly bounched back - responding to pruning with rapid
> growth.

That can be a problem with pruning in that each branch will throw out
lots of new growth. I have a couple of Acers in the garden that I do
prune every few years once the new growth has become usable on the stove.

> My instinct is that it is already a bit late for such brutal pruning
> this year because of the risk of silver leaf infection in the wounds.

Oh absolutely - I'm planning my next year's 'big jobs' for the garden.
I've a couple of other trees that I will be having felled by an arborist
as they are far too big for me to tackle so it may be that when he comes
this Autumn I may ask him for some 'free advice' on the cherries,
forearmed with the discussions here.

[David]

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:57:50 +0100, Charlie Pridham wrote:

> On 10/08/2016 16:47, Ermin Trude wrote:
>> Has anyone any experience of pollarding cherry trees please?
>>
>> We have a couple of very large cherry trees in the garden with lots of
>> bough but very little leaf and thin covering of blossom each spring.
>>
>> I am minded to pollard the trees to make them far more compact and to
>> reduce bough length in doing so. Hopefully this would also concentrate
>> the blossom.
>>
>> Has anyone tried this and with what result? I'll forgo the bloosom for
>> the first year but would hope to see it in future years - for this
>> reason I'd not be doing both at the same time.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
> One across the road from us was given some chain saw pruning, it
> flowered a bit the following year was better the next and back to normal
> by the third year

Just checking - if you coppice a tree you basically cut it down almost to
ground level removing all the branches and expecting new shoots to grow
from the stump.

Is pollarding the same but around head height? That is, if the tree is
tall you take of all the branches and just leave a bare 6-8 foot stump?

If so I assume that only some types of tree will survive this brutality.

Alternatively, do you just cut the centre back hard to the lowest few
branches and also cut those back hard?

Cheers


Dave R

--
Windows 8.1 on PCSpecialist box

[Ermin Trude]

On Sat, 13 Aug 2016 15:21:52 +0000, David wrote:

> On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:57:50 +0100, Charlie Pridham wrote:
>
>> On 10/08/2016 16:47, Ermin Trude wrote:
>>> Has anyone any experience of pollarding cherry trees please?
>>>

>>>

>> One across the road from us was given some chain saw pruning, it
>> flowered a bit the following year was better the next and back to
>> normal by the third year
>
> Just checking - if you coppice a tree you basically cut it down almost
> to ground level removing all the branches and expecting new shoots to
> grow from the stump.
>
> Is pollarding the same but around head height? That is, if the tree is
> tall you take of all the branches and just leave a bare 6-8 foot stump?

Yes, that is correct. I don't wish to have the new growth from low down
but to come out at a height where I can still get under it easily with
the mower.

>
> If so I assume that only some types of tree will survive this brutality.

Hence the question ;-)

>
> Alternatively, do you just cut the centre back hard to the lowest few
> branches and also cut those back hard?
>

It has been crown lifted in the past so there is really nothing in the
centre that could be usefully retained. I'm minded to try pollarding one
(the least conspicuous) and seeing how it recovers and then use gentler
methods on the others if the initial result is poor. If it *is* poor and
the tree dies then at least I have some firewood :-/