Hi, I have a 90 year old friend who lives in the Northeast of America in Massachusetts , and she is wondering if you can cut the tops off of a Magnolia tree without killing it. Thank you for your help! Denyse
Likely to induce trunk decay and sprouting of weakly attached vertical shoots. With trees generally mature specimens are apt to be damaged and deformed by topping, while very young ones are much better able to recover from it - but even these will still have their shapes altered, with unwanted production of forking branches likely (as well as making it look cluttered these may cause the tree to split later in life).
How would you trim the top off a magnolia tree without causing damage, as it is too tall (2 stories tall) as it is, then? Thank you!
What Ron B is saying is that you can't top a Magnolia without causing damage! Magnolias are not trees that take pruning well. The tend to look really ugly after a major pruning and the rapid regrowth branch structure is just as unsightly and is weakly attached to the tree (not good in ice storms). Cut it if you like.....you've got our opinion.
I understand. It's for an 90 year old woman and she asked me if there was any other way to trim it without hurting it. I guess, the only alternative is to take it down and plant something else that won't grow so high. Thanks for the advice.
2 stories is quite short for a tree, she needs some tall shrubs there. Otherwise, if these are comparatively young, vigorously growing specimens a trained and experienced pruner can lower them to please her without creating a disaster (unless she wants too much taken off). And they will, of course, start to grow back immediately afterward - one of the problems with topping of all kinds of trees is that they grow back (unless too severely damaged or unable to sprout much, if at all for other reasons, like being a conifer). Have somebody out to look at the trees who has credentials and certifications indicating they should know something (NOT a former lumberjack!) and find out what they think will work. You're going to have to interview and hire a tree service or similar operator anyway.
The amount to be taken off the top of the tree has not been mentioned, nor the type of Magnolia as several evergreen Magnolias respond better to severe pruning than several deciduous Magnolias will. Aesthetics, how some people want their plant or others plants to look sometimes does not mean much when the plant is not theirs. Let others better determine what kind of Magnolia it is, present a photo or two to show the basic shape of the tree, see how much lower growth there is on the tree and the health of the lower growth before one decides to take the tree out due to them not knowing what to do with it now. If the tree is indeed an evergreen Magnolia and there is sufficient lower growth on the tree then we can prune back to healthy growth and reshape the tree later. Have a certified arborist come out and inspect the tree and give an give an estimate based on the work that needs to be done now to comply with the owners wishes and have them provide an estimation of the follow up work that will probably need to be done later to shore up the tree to make it look nice again as it tries to grow back. Years ago I cut my Charles Rafill on its own roots way back as I was losing a lot of top growth, with large branches dying on me back to the base of the truck. I trimmed a 22 foot tree back to 5' tall, gave it a severe flat top haircut. I was not overly concerned what anyone felt about what the tree looked like later, I was doing what I could to help save it. Okay, 12 years later I have a tree again but it was not without constant maintenance to help get it back to where I can see this tree live for a long time and not worry too much about it, not apply much more hands on work on the tree now. It can be done but we have to stay on top of the tree sometimes. Most people do not have the patience or the know how to get this far. That is no fault of them as they have to really know the plant and know what they can expect from that plant in order to work with it in hopes of achieving an adequate or satisfactory result. Cut a two story tree back to one story is not a big deal for some Magnolias providing we know what we are up against when we whack the tree back and we have an idea what to expect from both us in what we have to provide for the tree later on in compensation due to our handiwork and from the tree itself in what it should do, could do and perhaps will not do for us later on based on what we've done to it. Jim
