Advice re 3 trees in our garden

[kingfisher46]

I would be obliged if we could get some advice about trees which were in our garden when we moved in last year. It was winter when we viewed the house and the trees were bare, we didn't notice how big they were until the leaves started appearing! We are in a bungalow and our next door neighbours are bungalows as well. They were built in 2003 and the previous owners of our property must have planted the trees, we don't know when exactly so they are all no more than 18 years old. We've identified one of the trees online as a Tibetan cherry because of the very distinctive and beautiful bark. It is planted right next to the boundary fence with our neighbours behind us and is overhanging in to their garden. We wondered whether it will get any bigger? I measured the circumference of the trunk at the bottom which is 58 inches, I'm not sure if that is relevant information. It's the smallest in height of the three trees but it has a very big crown and wondered what time of the year it should be cut back? Our garden isn't that big and we feel the trees are far too big for the size of it. We also just read online that Tibetan cherry trees are toxic to cats and dogs. We have got a cat and the neighbour whose garden it's overhanging has got two dogs who are outside a lot of the time so that is worrying us. It's a beautiful tree and we want to keep it but if it's going to harm our cat or the neighbour's dogs then we would need to get rid of it. The other two trees are the same variety but we can't identify them online. They are deciduous and have green leaves and variegated leaves. They are both about 25  to 30 feet high, they are next to the perimeter fence with our next door neighbour and are encroaching in to their garden. We would be obliged if anyone could identify them for us and let us know if they will grow any bigger. We will need to get tree surgeons out to look at them if we decide to get them cut back or remove some of them. We'd hate to chop down trees as the birds love them but they are really big and they are all quite close to the house. If we got them all cut back we wondered how quickly they would grow back again as we don't want the expense of tree surgeons every few years. If the Tibetan cherry is poisonous to our cat or the neighbour's dogs then we don't want to keep it. I've attached some photos, thanks for any info anyone can give us. 

Edited September 8, 2021 by kingfisher46
Typo

[daltontrees]

Shame you've been talked into removing the poplars based on imagined huge stature. These look to be P. candicans 'Aurora' which is a rarity of a poplar on 2 counts. Firstly it is easily managed at a smaller stature, especially as far north as Dumfries. No harder to manage than the cherry, possibly easier. Secondly it is a tree that changes colour all through the growing season. Starts green then goes pink and green then yellow and light green then autumn colours.  I've seen them tick over in Selkirk and Bothwell, where they were being managed as little more than large shrubs.

[monkeybusiness]

If you end up keeping any (but not all) of the poplars then I’d suggest not using Glyphosate/Ecoplugs on the stumps of the trees you remove as you may inadvertently also poison the retained trees due to root grafting (only an issue with same-species neighbouring trees). 

[kingfisher46]

On 15/09/2021 at 18:52, daltontrees said:

Shame you've been talked into removing the poplars based on imagined huge stature. These look to be P. candicans 'Aurora' which is a rarity of a poplar on 2 counts. Firstly it is easily managed at a smaller stature, especially as far north as Dumfries. No harder to manage than the cherry, possibly easier. Secondly it is a tree that changes colour all through the growing season. Starts green then goes pink and green then yellow and light green then autumn colours.  I've seen them tick over in Selkirk and Bothwell, where they were being managed as little more than large shrubs.

We haven't noticed the leaves of these two trees in our garden going pink since we moved in last summer.  We've arranged for a couple of tree surgeons to come next week and will ask their advice but they are far too big for the garden the size they are at the moment and definitely look like they've grown quite a bit since last year.

[kingfisher46]

On 15/09/2021 at 19:16, monkeybusiness said:

If you end up keeping any (but not all) of the poplars then I’d suggest not using Glyphosate/Ecoplugs on the stumps of the trees you remove as you may inadvertently also poison the retained trees due to root grafting (only an issue with same-species neighbouring trees). 

There are two poplars and one Tibetan cherry tree. If we do get rid of the poplars then it will be both of them, we definitely want to keep the cherry so using Ecoplugs should be okay from what you've said if we decide to do that.

[monkeybusiness]

1 hour ago, kingfisher46 said:

There are two poplars and one Tibetan cherry tree. If we do get rid of the poplars then it will be both of them, we definitely want to keep the cherry so using Ecoplugs should be okay from what you've said if we decide to do that.

Yes, that will be fine. If any of your near neighbours have poplars they may be saddened through!…

[kingfisher46]

On 18/09/2021 at 23:53, monkeybusiness said:

Yes, that will be fine. If any of your near neighbours have poplars they may be saddened through!…

None of our neighbours have got any trees so we don't have that problem 😃

[ledders666]

That cherry is nice. I'd keep that and leave it alone. Never heard of cats eating trees so you'll probably be OK with that.

[Conor Wright]

Fwiw my advice would be to remove the pops, they will potentially outgrow their positions relatively quickly. Wouldn't touch the cherry. That's a specimen and an asset to the garden. As regards it being poisonous to pets, it's highly highly unlikely they will voluntarily consume enough to actually poison themselves.The risk is virtually nil. There is a long list of potentially poisonous plants which are commonly found in gardens, I wouldn't be concerned about it to be honest.