Getting rid of Leyandii

Darsad

Hi Due to numerour complaints from surrounding neighbours I have a need to get rid of 5 large Leyandii trees. I love the privacy they afford us and cutting back is not an option as I did this some years back and to do it again at a height acceptable to the neighbours will just leave bare wood with no green. I was thinking of planting Silver or Himilayan Birch as a direct replacement. Has anybody got an opinion on using these or indeed any alternative. I am not too sure the guy I have to remove them will remove the roots so any suggestions on the best way to prepare the ground for replanting. Many Thanks Dar

rje66

Try to get a stump grinder to manage the roots if possible.
Personally I'd plant silver birch, Himalayan birch has a larger crown, but either are nice.
Other options could be Sorbus vilmornii or other varieties of Sorbus.

Calahonda52

If they have not yet been cut then there is no excuse for not getting out the stumps, it is a bit more work with a tifor but grinding the stump in situ will not give you planting space.
Do you have side access?
I removed sixteen 40 foot ones in our garden when we bought 30 years ago.

I used a three tonne tifor, the leverage the height gave me was tremendous, I got the last one out by pulling it from the road with the car.

Iranoutofideas

Have these bollixin trees all around my house. About 60 in total, maybe even more. Wish I could afford to nuke them from orbit.

magicbastarder

i cut down 70 foot of leylandii, which had been maintained at about 12-14 foot tall, in our garden. 30 foot of it, i dug the stumps out myself as we wanted to plant fruit trees.

Iranoutofideas

magicbastarder wrote: »

i cut down 70 foot of leylandii, which had been maintained at about 12-14 foot tall, in our garden. 30 foot of it, i dug the stumps out myself as we wanted to plant fruit trees.

How long did that take you? Those goddamn trees should be banned from sale. :mad:

Norfolk Enchants_

Iranoutofideas wrote: »

How long did that take you? Those goddamn trees should be banned from sale. :mad:

Yah great idea ban the trees because the owners can't look after them, that'll sort it alright.

shotie

whats the problem with leyandii tress ? have a neighbour who has them and ive never had a problem with them if any thing they give great privacy to us both .

magicbastarder

Iranoutofideas wrote: »

How long did that take you?

far too long. i would not recommend it necessarily for other people, i was just bloody minded enough to carry it off.
would have been far easier if i'd been able to get a decent shredder into the back garden.

magicbastarder

shotie wrote: »

whats the problem with leyandii tress ?

iirc, no-one actually knows how tall they can grow; they're a hybrid and the oldest known one still growing is about 150 foot tall and still growing. so if they're allowed to grow without being pruned, they can quickly become a very expensive problem to deal with.
a german colleague was telling me that a nickname for them in germany is 'the lonely tree' because so many people use them to shut out the rest of the world.

on a different note, they're a featureless green wall when grown into a hedge, and as i wanted to cultivate a wildlife garden, they had to come out. in 70 foot of hedging, i found a single nest which looked like it was abandoned more than 5 years ago.

Iranoutofideas

Norfolk Enchants_ wrote: »

Yah great idea ban the trees because the owners can't look after them, that'll sort it alright.

They offer nothing to the garden as outlined above. Secondly, the pace at which these trees grow is phenomenal. The previous owners of my house were elderly and couldn't take care of them nor could they afford to get them cut. When I enquired myself I was quoted several hundred euro to get the poxy things cut back.

I did it myself, but it was a brutal laborious job.:mad:

r3nu4l

I recently bought a house that is seven years old and that has at least 50* of these trees surrounding two sides of the property

Apparently, the trees were cut back four years ago but they are still over 30-40 feet tall at the moment and we've been quoted 2500 and 2700 just to get them cut back to about 20 feet tall.

I'd love to get rid of them entirely and replace them with something else but the cost of doing so will be prohibitive for now...



* there are at least 50, perhaps 60-70 of them. At the back end of the garden they are planted several rows thick and I haven't had enough time yet to do a proper assessment of their numbers myself.

Do they burn well if chopped and logged?

magicbastarder

mine burn fine for me - best to leave them two seasons though.