On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:07:22 +0100, lloyd wrote:

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?

Yew does make growth all up the trunk and resprouts whenever and
wherever it is cut. That is why it is used so successfully for
hedging. You will have difficulty shaping it into a specimen tree.
Most conifers will not resprout if cut back to old wood but yew will.

Pam in Bristol