Trees topped :((

[Chiara]

My fantastic Polish builder has done such a great job on our house that I trusted him wholly when he recommended a supposed qualified aborist to crop a bit of height off our gorgeous cherry plum trees. Unfortunately it would seem he had no idea what he was doing as I came home to x2 completely butchered trees - every single leaf bearing branch removed. I am completely and utterly devastated

What do you recommend I do??

Do I keep them and wait for them to grow back??

Does anyone know how long this will take?!

Will we see any green this summer??

And will they ever blossom again??

How quickly might they grow back??

I'm not sure how long I can stand seeing the depressing stumps for that long...

Would be great to hear any advice or recommendations that might help us through this dreadful situation.

Thanks so much.

[Chiara]

Hi guys,

As promised attached pictures of the poor old trees

Look forward to your feedback.

All the best,

Chiara

[Ian C]

Personally having seen loads of topped cherry trees like that i would say fell them and plant a tree at the end of your garden,they will put growth back on but are spoilt now.

 

As matty said cherry should be pruned in full leaf in summer.

 

My next door neighbour did exactly this to his tree 5 yrs ago and it still looks a complete mess.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Ian C

[Stephen Blair]

Firewood.

[Mountain man]

If they are purple plum they might come back with a lot of vigour, my advice leave them till November/December, see what they look like, make your decision then.

[Hodge]

Replace them, they will just sprout loads of eppicormic and look a right mess. Get yer polish builder to pay as he has made a right mess of the original trees.

[ReubenHayes]

Ouch, yes that is very drastic pruning works! Given the space in the gardens, a simple thin of the canopy would have been sufficient. The volume of branches removed only really results to one option - Remove the tree and plant 2 new trees.

 

They are/were mature trees and the tree surgeon has removed all the branches and most of the scaffold branches so the shape will never return properly. Did you check and make sure they are not protected or within a Conservation Area?

[kev7937]

I started to fell one at my brothers house once and he decided to leave just the main stem for his cat to run up, it looks fine now you probably wouldn't notice without close inspection

 

Even after three ish yrs it didn't look too bad in full leaf

[Goaty]

I would leave it until the end of this year. Also as mentioned possibly plant a tree behind it.

Most people seem to stick trees in the corner of small gardens, I recommend not doing this because 75% of the footprint will be on other peoples property and they can manage it up to their boundary. Also a pain to maintain with access issues.

 

However this tree is likely to recover in my opinion.

[Gary Prentice]

I would leave it until the end of this year. Also as mentioned possibly plant a tree behind it.

Most people seem to stick trees in the corner of small gardens, I recommend not doing this because 75% of the footprint will be on other peoples property and they can manage it up to their boundary. Also a pain to maintain with access issues.

 

However this tree is likely to recover in my opinion.

 

And mine.

 

This species tends to produce loads of vigorous uprights, so it may be a case of selectively thinning them out in a few years time to create a new scaffold structure ( as much as possible within the radius of the canopy left).

 

Mulching with decomposed woodchip also wouldn't amiss either.

[geoff]

I'm in the leave them camp, if you liked them, with some selective pruning over a few years they will come back with vigor.

 

Mulching underneath will help.