Trees - to cut down, or not?

Tisserand

I have a small garden to the rear of my house which has a row of very tall trees bordering the back wall. Two of these trees are silver birch and I don't know what the others are. They are all deciduous and every autumn I have a big job raking up leaves and the silver birches are shedding catkins at the moment so raking them up is also a chore, not to mention the mantle of dried 'powder' like substance they shed so that I can't open the windows in my house or leave out washing to dry!

My lawn seems to be permanently damp and is mossy right up to the back door. I bought this house 7 years ago and definitely think that as the trees grow taller the house is colder as both this summer and last summer I have had to light the fire in my living room at night, even some nights last week during our heatwave!

What I am wondering is should I just get the trees pruned or have them cut down altogether. Will they continue to grow even after pruning? The house is 12 years old so I am guessing the trees would have been planted around the time it was built and may not yet have grown to their full potential.

Any advice would be appreciated.

My Potatoes

(Potentially) Big trees in a small garden is a bad idea. I'd cut them down.

paddy147

Tisserand wrote: »

I have a small garden to the rear of my house which has a row of very tall trees bordering the back wall. Two of these trees are silver birch and I don't know what the others are. They are all deciduous and every autumn I have a big job raking up leaves and the silver birches are shedding catkins at the moment so raking them up is also a chore, not to mention the mantle of dried 'powder' like substance they shed so that I can't open the windows in my house or leave out washing to dry!

My lawn seems to be permanently damp and is mossy right up to the back door. I bought this house 7 years ago and definitely think that as the trees grow taller the house is colder as both this summer and last summer I have had to light the fire in my living room at night, even some nights last week during our heatwave!

What I am wondering is should I just get the trees pruned or have them cut down altogether. Will they continue to grow even after prunng? The house is 12 years old so I am guessing the trees would have been planted around the time it was built and may not yet have grown to their full potential.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Any pics?:)

magicbastarder

if you had to light your fire when the air temp was in the high teens/low 20s, you've bigger problems with heating than those trees.
i assume they're on the south side of the house, going by your description above?
how tall are they?

Tisserand

paddy147 wrote: »

Any pics?:)

HI Paddy, I was hoping I'd hear from you. The sensible thing would have been for me to post pics but I don't have a camera phone and my digitial camera is not working. Will try and borrow a camera and get some up as soon as I can.

I think I remember hearing somewhere that trees should not be closer to the house than 2 and a half times their height. I'd say if these trees were cut down and laid down on the lawn they would fit exactly from the back wall to the wall of my house, so they are way too near!!

mark17j

i'd prune the silver birch, such a beautiful tree, shame to cut that. they look well in small gardens. I have one out my back also.

Tisserand

magicbastarder wrote: »

if you had to light your fire when the air temp was in the high teens/low 20s, you've bigger problems with heating than those trees.
i assume they're on the south side of the house, going by your description above?
how tall are they?

HI, yes they are on the south side. I don't have any trees at all on the north facing side of the house, which is detached with houses both sides.

Don't know what height they are but I am guessing about 40 to 50 feet

magicbastarder

they're well older than the house so if they're that tall. 50 foot would be over three times the height of a double decker dublin bus.

JustAThought

Cant say without pics !!

I have a beutiful multi stemmed silver birch at the end of my (small!) garden but I love it. They are leafy trees & not dense; are thin limbed so they wave in the wind with slender light branches. They look beautiful in winter when their silver stems give a Lift and bit of light to the otherwise dreary brown garden . I love mine.

Post us a few pics - there may be a way you Can thin one out to create more room. They're far from Leylandi .

What will be on view if you cut them? Wall? Neighbours? Windows?

Tisserand

JustAThought wrote: »

Cant say without pics !!

I have a beutiful multi stemmed silver birch at the end of my (small!) garden but I love it. They are leafy trees & not dense; are thin limbed so they wave in the wind with slender light branches. They look beautiful in winter when their silver stems give a Lift and bit of light to the otherwise dreary brown garden . I love mine.

Post us a few pics - there may be a way you Can thin one out to create more room. They're far from Leylandi .

What will be on view if you cut them? Wall? Neighbours? Windows?

Hi. I have a house to the back of me who have a very tall decidious tree in the middle of their back garden so in the summer at least we wouldn't be over looking each other if my trees were cut down. I suppose I could thin out the silver birches but they are so tall they are beginning to curve in over my lawn and when the sun is shining more than half the lawn is in shade.

Tisserand

magicbastarder wrote: »

they're well older than the house so if they're that tall. 50 foot would be over three times the height of a double decker dublin bus.

I'm not sure - neither of my neighbours either side have trees so it looks like they were planted by my previous owner. Also I have just dug out a photo of the garden that I took shortly after buying the house and one of the trees just looks like a shrub! I have no idea what species this tree is.

bbam

In fairness silver birch don't block much light and in general are a fantastic looking tree. I'd be holding on to them.

Maybe keep them And remove the others.

But the thing people forget is that trees can be pruned and kept under control for Most gardens

paddy147

Spare a thought for Wildlife....birds and possible nests.

Sonnenblumen

I'm not sure which is worse, a garden with no trees or a garden congested with oversized trees. The latter might be good for the owner but I doubt the neighbouring property owners would be to pleased.

Common sense should indicate what should be done, that said, good sense is often lacking.

By the sound of it, it is probably too late to do any significant size reduction in which case the options are remove and/or replace with smaller trees.

There are also plenty of suitable shrubs which will provide more reasonable height etc

Tisserand

Sonnenblumen, I'm wondering the same myself, what the garden would look like with no trees at all. I do feel that I have great privacy from the back at the moment but if I cut them down I would immediately plant evergreen shrubs which would grow to reasonable height e.g. red robin. The autumn leaves from these trees is a huge chore and the leaves from one of the trees, a species I can't identify, continue to fall into January and February! In addition I would have a healthier lawn and brighter and hopefully warmer house.

The neighbours don't have a problem with my trees at all. In fact the house to the back of me has a tree in the middle of their garden which is surely 100 ft. high. They got it lopped 2/3 years ago but it's grown quickly again. So their house doesn't overlook me, in summer anyway, because of this tree.

All things considered, I think they will have to go!