Random thoughts:

When you cut them that much shorter I'm concerned you'll have brown or bare spots showing.

The yews are replaceable for relatively little from Garden Centers or box stores.

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I'd wait till early spring next year, cut them to size and see if they recover or start to look attractive. My tolerance would be about May before I replace them.

Hi toronado3800: I couldn't even cut them that short. I got one down to where I want it. No bare spots, etc. They have needles growing all the way to the base.

But since I couldn't get any of the others down shorter, I have decided to yank at least the two on each side of the porch out. The one to the left came out very easily with a tractor and chain. The one to the right, well, tried the tractor, no luck. Got out a bobcat that can lift 3000 pounds with a VERY heavy duty chain... it won't even budge. My goal tonight is to dig around as far as I can around the base, cut some roots and give the Bobcat another try this evening.

I'm going to try and get something sharper to prune down the others, but after seeing what it takes to pull one of these out, I'm going to leave them there and add to the foundation planting so they are less noticeable.

oooowwwweee .. power tools ... you go for it ..

they are ugly.. over-grown.. over-pruned.. horrible messes.. be done with them

with the classic lines of your house.. you shouldnt be fooling around with those drab things ...

are you sure there are no utilities that will be ripped out..

ken

Yew is one of the few conifers where you can cut back hard and they'll re-grow without leaving permanent brown holes. So go ahead and cut to the desired size.

Resin

I just got rid of mine - five on the west side of my house.

I am loath to cut or kill any foliage in my yard, but I truly dislike this shrub, they look crazy when they are not regularly groomed and if you cut them down too short they look nasty for a long long time.

Glad to be rid of them. I'm thinking of planting some Mock Orange or even Lilac in their place.

Hi, Jessinpiner!

If I were you, I let them live for a while. They show a nice background as they are. I would start to plant nice and colorful plant in front of them. This is what I talk about:

{{gwi:684488}}

A good combination of grasses, colorful shrubs, and rare conifer give u a great garden.
Read the conifer forum and start to collect conifers.

Zsolti

The color, density and symmetry of the yews goes well with the stark black-and-white, geometrically symmetric house facade. Deciduous "brush" like Philadelphus and Syringa would not be nearly as compatible and effective.

The asymmetry of the garden in the sketch would not go with this style of house facade.

Probably instead of tearing the yew out you just need to get them pruned in a different way, that you like better. Maybe reduce the height of the ones in front a bit, definitely train the ones at the corners to become taller and conical - the continuation of the flatness of the ones in front all the way across to the corners is a big part of the problem.

For thicker branches up to 1 1/2 inch diameter I use a long-handle pruner. Make sure you have good access for a cut with a chainsaw or you might get cut.

The one taxus which does not budge might got entangled with underground pipes and wiring which usually run in front of houses, coming out of basements. Be also careful digging, because you can easily cut wires which might look like roots. A friend and I both did that.
Good luck!
Bernd

I could have written your OP! We have three yews in front of our house that have grown into one giant, dreary mess. I am close to just yanking them out with a winch, but reading this forum has given me a little hope.

So (pardon my hijack), when people talk about cutting yews back hard, do they mean I can chop the whole thing back to 12 inches off the ground? If yes, will they stop looking horrid in a year? Two years? And is it too late in spring to do it now?

When I reference cutting them back hard, I meant when you have neglected to keep them artificially groomed in a perfect and pristine fashion, and they begin to grow wild, you try to cut back all the newgrowth to give the shrub shape again, and in the process you expose a lot of nasty sticks and wood and then you have to wait months for them to recover.

Too much work, good riddance...These plants were never meant to be cut into shapes people contort them into and they fight it with a vigor!

I am in NY state, zone 5a. You can keep them cut back for a long time. But there are different cultivars of yews, some stay smaller. I have 4 little ones of 1 1/2 ft hi x 2 ft wide, do not know which cultivar, which I give a tight hair cut once or twice a year since 1987. One has one side bare because it was close to a mugo pine which I removed last year, and it has fresh green starting to grow there now.