Pruning trees or taking them off?

mikelata

Hi all,

7 years ago I bought a terraced house , my first house with my first ever garden...
Ignorantly excited, I bought 3 trees: a plum tree, a cherry blossom tree and a japanese maple tree...

Now, the trees have grown quite a lot...the japanese maple is OK, but the other 2 are growing fast, the garden is not that big with neighbours on both sides and I am wondering what to do.

I tried to prune them, but I don't know whether this is enough or not
- Can they be kept in some controlled height? Or is it a lost battle?
- Should I just take them off and give them to someone that has a bigger garden?

I attach a few pics :-)

Thanks!

smacl

I did something quite similar some years back, with two new pear trees and a cherry tree out back, and two new plum trees and a pear tree out front. All six were supposed to have been on dwarf stock and manageable with pruning, and all have been fine except for the cherry that I've had to take down since. Partly down to size, partly down to my own ignorance in having it too near a wall.

If your cherry is going skyward, it may be on the wrong stock for an urban garden, from the photo there seems to be a fair height of trunk before you see any foliage. That said, they still seem tiny by comparison to the trees your neighbour to the rear has. Its also worth talking to the neighbours to see if the trees bothers them. I've a fig tree on a boundary that I was considering cutting hard back as it was encroaching on next door, but on talking to the neighbours found they really like it and asked me to leave it be. Given the boundary to your neighbours is a wooden fence, the roots aren't likely to do much structural damage even if the trees do get bigger.