On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:00:30 +0000, Terry Deans
wrote:


A customer of mine wants me to prune back some birches which are in
their carpark. I have read up on this in my RHS book and it says late
winter/early spring, with some able to be done in late summer to early
autumn referrring to the sap bleeding that may take place if relevant to
the particular group.
By the looks of things they want fairly severe pruning as the trees are
'obstructing the views from the lower floor'!! I think they are
completely mad as this will result in lovely 16-18 ft trees being
reduced by around 6-8ft, but I may be wrong!

Could someone please throw some more light on this regarding both the
pruning time and severity and what result this will have on the health
of the trees and their size and quality following this action. Any
assistance and time afforded to this is very much appreciated as I would
be very keen on not causing long term damage to such wonderful young
trees. Thank you. Terry Deans

Where do you live? In most US municipalities if they're your trees on
your land and not hanging over the property line then the best thing
to do is to ignore the mutants or everytime you see them toss them the
bird.... me, just for fun I'd plant a dense row of tall evergreens
just so the creeps can't have a view all year. Birch do not respond
well to pruning... leave them be.... birch are actually self pruning,
any dead wood will drop to the ground.