Country gardener: felling trees (Filed: 12/06/2001)

Elspeth Thompson on how to go about chopping down a tree

I was pondering the other week about the two large leyland cypress trees in our new front garden by the sea. As summer sets in, we are increasingly frustrated by their gloomy presence - although they are on the north side of the house, one of the trees is fewer than six feet from a study window and the pair almost completely obscure our view of the sea.

My landlord, who remembers them as smallish bushes when he moved here 18 years ago, is quite happy for us to cut them down. This seems a radical move, especially since I hate the idea of felling a tree, but a leyland cypress is not just any old tree. Widely used and abused as fast-growing specimen and hedging plants, they have become the scourge of sensitive gardeners everywhere. Left to its own devices a leyland cypress can top 50ft in just 20 years - the reason ours have only managed a paltry 40ft is that the soil in our front garden is almost pure shingle.

I've only ever seen one leyland cypress that looked good in its setting: it was at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire. A majestic 110-footer with a great forked trunk which was planted 70 years ago, it looked splendid in a woodland glade, towering above the surrounding maples and larches. Translated to a small suburban - or sunny seaside - garden, however, the leyland's silhouette looks bulky and out of place.

I have been considering our options. Rather than chop down both trees, I had decided to start by pruning out the lower branches on one of them. Raising the canopy in this way would let in more light and help us to imagine what the space would be like if the entire tree should go.

The effect can be dramatic. I've seen it done very successfully in a garden designed by James Fraser in south London, where he pruned the branches to leave a bare telegraph-pole trunk with just a small cloud-like canopy at the top. The result looked surprisingly good - not like a leyland cypress at all but, according to Fraser, remarkably similar to the tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) of his native New Zealand. He recommends working in careful stages (well after the bird-nesting season is over) to allow you to assess the ultimate shape of the tree and ensure that any upper branches which may have been resting on lower growth will have adequate support.

If we do end up felling the other tree, I'm reluctant to remove the remaining stump. It can be difficult and time-consuming - involving disturbing the earth for many yards around the tree and/or dissolving the wood with noxious chemicals - and there are other, more creative ways of dealing with tree stumps. I've seen them carved into wonderful sculptures: a totem pole - on which all the children in the family carved and painted their own fantasy face - and a figure doing a handstand among the bluebells. Or what about using the stump as the support for a table? I'm tempted to do this with ours, as that part of the garden gets good morning sun and would be a nice spot for a cup of coffee.

You'd need to treat the stump with something to avoid it rotting and attracting honey fungus - a proprietary solution of ammonium sulphamate is what most books recommend, but this would destroy a lot else beside the fungus. Armillatox, another potent preparation, is said to be effective against honey fungus, but, according to the Tree Advice Trust, whose excellent helpline (09065 161147) offers expert advice on tree care, planting and felling, there would still be a chance that the fungus might attack, and spread up to ten yards around the trunk. If your garden contains prized plants within that area, the trust recommends removing the trunk.

Large trees should be tackled by a tree surgeon (telephone the Arboricultural Association on 01794 368717 for approved contractors) and you should check with your local authority that the tree in question is not subject to a Tree Preservation Order or conservation area regulations.

In a conservation area, even the most lowly self-seeded sycamore may be protected if its trunk measures more than three inches in diameter at five feet above ground level, and penalties of up to £20,000 can be incurred. Even if you have permission, cutting down a mature tree can cost several hundred pounds. A neighbour of ours has, though, offered to fell our tree for free. He's a blacksmith with pagan leanings who has made it his crusade to rid the world of upstart conifers and reinstate our native oaks and other species. His kind offer has made my mind up for me. Well, it seems rather rude to refuse.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2001