Drastic prune of spotted laurel: Should I?
 

I was thinking about digging out a spotted laurel bush altogether. It's 5 foot or so high, maybe 4 across. However, I am wondering whether I can incorporate it into a new planting scheme BUT much smaller, say a 2 foot ball. If I were to cut it back in one go to 2', would death be inevitable?! Or would new shoots sprout from the trunks?

Can I do it now (mid March)? Bear in mind it won't be a catastrophe if I fail, except it would be good to know now, if the plan is doomed, so I can dig it out and plant something else!

I am in Southern Hampshire on clay soil.

Thanks

Drastic prune of spotted laurel: Should I?
 

On Sat, 5 Mar 2011 14:00:51 +0000, miljee
wrote:


I was thinking about digging out a spotted laurel bush altogether. It's
5 foot or so high, maybe 4 across. However, I am wondering whether I can
incorporate it into a new planting scheme BUT much smaller, say a 2 foot
ball. If I were to cut it back in one go to 2', would death be
inevitable?! Or would new shoots sprout from the trunks?

Can I do it now (mid March)? Bear in mind it won't be a catastrophe if I
fail, except it would be good to know now, if the plan is doomed, so I
can dig it out and plant something else!

I am in Southern Hampshire on clay soil.

Thanks

The first question you need to ask yourself is how energetic do you
feel - a laurel that size is going to have one hell of a root system
to dig out! I started to dig one out a few years ago and decided to
give up and just cut it right down to ground level - not even a stump
visible above ground. It's now about 3 feet high and about 2 across
again and I prune it in late April/early May each year to keep it to
that size. It's still a bit straggly but is starting to thinken and
will make a decent bush again in another year or two.

A mature laurel such as yours will survive heavy pruning - cutting
back to the 2 feet you propose - though it will take 2-3 years to
recover. New growth can emerge from the point where branches join the
trunk they're growing from, or where leaves join the branch they're
growing from, fairly easily. Otherwise, as happened in my case, new
growth will emerge in time from the roots.

If you want to chop it right down to ground then now's ok but if
you're looking to reduce it then I'd leave it for a month or so as
otherwise frosts could kill off the cut ends.

I have a spotted laurel - it used to be huge,about 8 foot high and wide, at least, and scrawny, but now i restrict it to about 5 foot tall and 3 foot wide. I think i cut it almost to the ground about 12 years ago and have to cut quite a bit off each year to control it. So i don't think yours will mind a similar treatment. I also have a small one about the size of yours which I'm thinking about keeping no bigger than 3 feet high and wide. However, I don't feel it's the sort of plant that will meekly accept being restricted to a small ball!

If you chopped it back hard, now, I think it would be looking pretty good again by the end of June; next year it would be straining at the leash again.