I hope you can help me.

I have a couple evergreen trees that are close to my property line.

I'm not sure what I have, and I think I need to know to ask advice.

They're not pine, or arbor vitae. I've tried to find them on google
images, and the web, but I don't have enough tree names to search on.
I think they are called fir trees, and they are something like
Christmas trees, but not exactly.

That is, on most of the tree, I can't see the branches at all. They
are totally hidden by the green surface made up of little "leaves",
(not needles) sort of like snowflakes but rounded and not hexagonal.
That's probably clear as mud.

Inside the trees are brown and sort of ugly. They have branches with
strange adhesions, like pieces of bark slightly separated from the
branch, and iirc the trunk is like that too.

They are about 28 years old and about 25 feet tall. Six or seven feet
wide at the widest part, 5 or 6 feet off the ground, one tree
extending about a foot into my n'bor's air space, and the other about
6 inches.


My new neighbor wants me to trim them. Whaddaya think?

I think they'll look ugly if trimmed, especially to him. That the
green part will never grow back and he'll see a brown hole leading all
the way to the trunk. (About 3 years ago, I was distracted by work
and sickness for a month or three, and a weed grew up to about 5 feet
tall, kept the sun from the tree, and the tree "leaves" dropped off
and haven't grown back after 3 years, even though I cut down the weed
3 years ago. One just sees there the lightless dark brown interior of
the tree.

He also says they are too tall. The tallest parts of course are the
narrowest parts, that don't extend above his property. If the top
were cut off, wouldn't it damage the tree a lot. IIRC I saw this once
and the tree didn't grow for 2 or 3 years, but then it sent out a
branch which eventually turned vertical, and it started growing again
but didn't look attractive. No one trims fir trees at the top, do
they?

FWIW, and I'm not saying this changes my duty, but one tree extends
onto his property at a corner that he never goes, and the other
between the 42" picket fence and his deck, but it's easily wide enough
to avoid the tree, and he never goes there anyhow since he doesn't
need to get his lawnmower anymore. The garden faucet is back there
too, but I don't think he ever uses it.

What should I tell my neighbor?

I don't think he's lived among fir trees for very long, and may not
know how they work. I think he's from south of Baltimore and I don't
know how long he's lived here.


Not only will trimmed trees be uglier for him but they'll also be
uglier for me.

Thanks for any help you can give.