Rogue conifer - worth saving?

[JMH]

We have this rogue in the garden that I have been trying to get removed but the rest of family want to keep it. Over the years two tree surgeons have chopped the top off in the hope it will try to get back into shape but it continues ever outwards. Personally I'd remove it but is there anything that can be done to shape it or otherwise persuade it not to become an inverted pyramid? It's essentially empty, there is no green at all behind the outer layer of green.

[Will C]

Yes take the top out down to about 2 inch tall!
All it will do by repeated topping is get wider and wider until it falls apart, the wider it gets the more material here will be and therefore the more it will cost to remove in due course. I would advise you to bite the bullet and get it gone rather than keep spending on it to potentially make it more expensive to remove in time!

[peds]

If it's hollow, stick a platform in it and put a comfy chair up there. Lovely place to hide for a while when it all gets too much.

[Dan Maynard]

Looks fine to me, what's wrong with it?

 

Completely hollow is normal, just a conifer doing it's thing - you won't be able to make it into a Christmas tree whatever you do. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, these things come and go in fashion.

[nepia]

Not something I'd bother with myself but you can pull the stems in a bit with heavy gauge wire and keep the outside annually hedge trimmed

Perhaps that could satisfy all family demands

The tree will have some value to wildlife for safe roosting and even nesting sites as well as a source of small insects

[Mark Bolam]

Just for the record, the two ‘tree surgeons’ who ‘chopped the top off and hoped it would get back into shape’ weren’t actually tree surgeons.

[JMH]

39 minutes ago, Dan Maynard said:

Looks fine to me, what's wrong with it?

 

One issue is it gets ever closer to the house windows. If it were 20 foot further away then I would let it be.

 

30 minutes ago, nepia said:

Not something I'd bother with myself but you can pull the stems in a bit with heavy gauge wire and keep the outside annually hedge trimmed

 

I did wonder about that. Anyway the fam want me to try (without them actually saying what they want me to try!) before just removing it... so worth a go.

[Mick Dempsey]

10 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

Just for the record, the two ‘tree surgeons’ who ‘chopped the top off and hoped it would get back into shape’ weren’t actually tree surgeons.

I imagine the ‘hope’ was originating from the owner.

I’d wager the two guys just listened to instructions, shrugged their shoulders, did it and put the bill in.

 

Thing’s not worth a toss, take it out.

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Mick Dempsey

[Dan Maynard]

10 hours ago, JMH said:

One issue is it gets ever closer to the house windows. If it were 20 foot further away then I would let it be.

Only way to fix that is fell and replant something you like further away. The sooner you plant the sooner it will get established, maybe do that and take the conifer out in a few years so you aren't left with a bare garden?

[JMH]

9 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

I imagine the ‘hope’ was originating from the owner.

I’d wager the two guys just listened to instructions, shrugged their shoulders, did it and put the bill in.

 

No I took their advice, they said chopping the top off may (not will) persuade it to re-shape. But it got worse, possibly encouraged by us removing the conifer next to it which then gave it a lot more sun. As to the guys in question they've done other work for us and all been excellent. Anyway I'm straying off.. thanks all for the advice here, I will try one (just one!) go at wiring it but on balance I suspect its days are severely numbered. The garden will not look bare without it.

[Mick Dempsey]

The topping isn’t making it get wider and wider, it’d do that anyway, even if you left the top on.