Sunnyside Over Road, Church Minshull, Nantwich, Cheshire East, CW5 6EA
There are 4 Cherry laurels present within the conservation area of our property. The age of these laurels and lack of maintenance has meant these 4 intertwined shrubs stand approximately 4 - 4.5m tall, 7 - 8m long and 3.5 - 4m wide. (We moved into the property in Sept 22). Their current state means that there is much overcrowding creating the risk of disease, but they are also restricting the acers which stand in front by forcing them to grow forwards rather than balanced, not ideal when all is planted on a slope. The other side is now impacting upon the neighbours hedge which lines their driveway and left unchecked will eventual impede the driveway and also damage the hedge. Whilst the height is fairly common for this type of laurel it makes it a far riskier task in maintaining it especially as it is on a slope and harder with both the hedge and trees and shrubs that line it. Proposed works. Hard pruning is required to renovated these neglected shrubs. Our rejuvenation process will take several years and therefore we are keen to catch the pruning of this shrub at the right time. This year will be both crown thinning and crown reduction of between a third to a half with focus on removing diseased, damaged and dead branches and rubbing shoots. All of these will be taken back to ground level. Based on the amount removed we will look to thin and reduce older stems by half to leave healthy outward facing buds. We anticipate a final shape to be approximately 2.5m - 3m tall, 6 - 7m long and 2.5m wide. Further years action will depend on how these 4 shrubs react to rejuvenation, but would anticipate that remaining older branches will need to be shortened, and should we see excessive new shoot growth these will need to be trimmed. Further to this any other action will be removal of the final older stems and maintaining new shoot growth so that the shrubs remain healthy and manageable.