"lloyd" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:45:04 +0100, "Spider"

wrote:


"lloyd" wrote in message
. ..
I have a Yew tree at the end of my garden (lots of birds
eating the
berries, could they be fieldfare's..sort of like a thrush but
agang of
them?) anyway it's about 35ft tall, nice and bushy. But the
branches
go all the way down the trunk and touch the floor. Some birds
kept
getting caught by something (hawk) going by the way the
feathers and
doiwn is spread. Never seen a Yet tree with branches to the
ground
anyway and I'd like to trim them up about five foot up the
trunk from
the ground. Question is does the tree grow from the top
upwards, in
which case my five foot gap will always be there, or does it
grow from
the ground up, so eventually my five foot gap will end up
50ft in the
air, if you get what I mean?

thanks

Yes, you can certainly trim away the lower branches without
harming or
stunting the growth of the tree. However, unlike most
conifers, yews will
respout from old wood, so you will need to trim regrowth back
to the trunk
from time to time. As it happens, I'm doing the same thing
with my Yew
tree, but allowing some regrowth on the trunk so it has a
green, textured
'overcoat', which I believe will look nicer (and be more
wildlife-friendly)
than a bare trunk.

thank you for the replies chaps. It would seem the Yew is quite
a
special tree too and is best left alone, so I think I might
leave it
after all.

I have heavily pruned some of our many Yews. None seem to have
suffered but all look better for it.

Two very straggly examples I pruned in 2007 have gone from this
http://share.ovi.com/media/Muddymike...uddymike.10275

To this
http://share.ovi.com/media/Muddymike...uddymike.10648 Not
the best of pictures this one as it was taken into the sun.

Mike