We live in the Okanagan and have a tall Juniperus horizontalis (Wiltoni Juniper?) hedge, 15 to 20 feet in height and it’s now blocking our view. From a plant health perspective, will it be safe to trim (aprox) the top 5 feet from the tops?
Cutting off 1/3 off a living thing is not something that I would recommend or encourage. Is it a nice looking healthy tree? Have you considered keeping it and making it part of the panorama? As for safety, falling off a ladder while 10' off the ground during pruning is always a concern. Sorry if these response comes across as sarcastic...I tried to tone it down.
Thanks for your response, I'm a gardening neophyte. Is there any amount of trimming that would not be harmful to the long term health of the plant?
The name you have given is for a creeping groundcover type so your hedge is another kind. You can prune it back as far as it currently has live foliage. Cutting back deeper into the shrubs, where there is only old dead leaves and bare branches, cannot be expected to result in a full hedge later as like most other conifers junipers are not very good at sprouting vigorously from bare wood.
