Hi, I have been reading about the posts regarding he monkey puzzle tree. We have a 50 foot tree in our garden and it has a few brown branches. From your replies I know it is ok to cut the dead off at the collar of the branch but is there a particular time of year to do this? We have also been told in the past that you should take the full ring of branches off is this true too? I believe our tree is a male as once year it produces green/yellow dust every year. We live in North Lincolnshire UK. We hope you can help us as from reading your replies that if you do not remove the dead branches more do start to appear.