Mr. Nolan, Capenders Park, Herts

Mr. Nolan contacted Artemis Tree services requesting advice on a Purple plum tree in his front garden. An impressive feature of the property’s frontage, but due to its size it had begun to overpower the garden blocking out sunlight to the rest of the garden and it was also affecting light penetration into the house. Mr Nolan was keen to tackle the light issue without affecting the visual impact that the tree provided. In addition the tree itself is a protected specimen due to its outstanding amenity value to the community and with this in mind no work could commence until permission had been granted from Hertfordshire borough council.

Permission was sought and once granted our challenge was to reduce and thin out the crown of the tree ensuring a natural shape and outline was retained without upsetting the balance of the crown. We also needed to decrease the crown’s density to allow more light to penetrate through to the garden and into the property. Our focus was heightened by the fact that the tree was protected and this made the operation a huge challenge to ensure its amenity value to the community was unaltered.

The operation was performed in two stages, firstly the density needed to be addressed and by the removal of selected branches this was achieved without altering the tree’s natural shape and form. Secondly the tree needed to be shaped to produce a neatly rounded crown, by removing tips of branches which had overgrown and begun to look straggly and unbalanced. This part of the procedure required us to cut back the branches to well established growth points throughout the entire crown, ensuring the tree would not become stressed by the pruning operation and would continue to grow in its natural form.

The series of photos’ right show the tree before work had begun, during the thinning process and the final result.