Coppicing/Pollarding Tulip Trees

[hodge grayson]

Does anyone know how well young (10 years ish) tulip trees respond to coppicing or pollarding? I realise it's a bizarre question but it's a specific request from a client, and having only come across tulip trees in a domestic context, I wasn't able to say with any certainty whether or not it was possible or viable.

 

Cheers 

[Khriss]

Bizzare, what is he actually expecting? K

[Mick Dempsey]

You can hit them pretty hard, I’ve done a few and they come back strong.

 

Coppicing I don’t know, probably not advisable.

[Vedhoggar]

1 hour ago, hodge grayson said:

Does anyone know how well young (10 years ish) tulip trees respond to coppicing or pollarding? I realise it's a bizarre question but it's a specific request from a client, and having only come across tulip trees in a domestic context, I wasn't able to say with any certainty whether or not it was possible or viable.

 

Cheers 

Liriodendendon is a species that will respond to pollarding but not sure about coppicing but I suspect it will. A tulip tree at Stourhead Gardens, Wiltshire planted in 1791 was cut back by about 1/3 from memory in the late 1980s or early 1990's because of a large cavity in the stem, it was at the time the largest tulip tree in the country and it responded well (the tree measured 32m x 5.5m at 1m in 1974 and 28m x 6.65m at 1m in 2011).

[Khriss]

Usually planted as a feature tree ( and it is very good for that) dunno why you would want to tree it like forest tree, loads better trees for coppicing. K

[nepia]

Pollarding - no problem.  Years ago I took all the branches off the top of a 10' stem because the tree had been hugely shaded on one side by a pine.  The Tulip came back really well, sending up three scaffold branches I suppose you'd call them.

Sadly two of them were very close to each other and developed an included union which failed in a storm, the split breaching the pollard point and dividing the stem to within 3 feet of the ground.

[hodge grayson]

8 hours ago, Khriss said:

 

 

6 hours ago, Khriss said:

Usually planted as a feature tree ( and it is very good for that) dunno why you would want to tree it like forest tree, loads better trees for coppicing. K

Thanks everyone for your replies. Khriss it's actually for an individual tree that has developed a lean. The client's had an excavator go through his arboretum last winter following storms so, I reckon, it's probably had a knock. The root plate seems sound enough but I'd be surprised if there wasn't some damage. He's been advised by his gardener that he should coppice it in order to save it. 

[nepia]

...or grub it out and put in a new 2m specimen that can become a tree-shaped tree.  They grow like there's no tomorrow

[Khriss]

33 minutes ago, nepia said:

...or grub it out and put in a new 2m specimen that can become a tree-shaped tree.  They grow like there's no tomorrow

That really, a pic might help to show what damage it may have had, K

[nepia]

? 🤔