Not the best shot, but you can see multiple leaders. They seem to start separating on the top.

for the life of me.. i cant understand the concept behind this planting ... put in a couple hundred square feet of paving stone.. and then a tiny little planter .. and then plant tree with great potential ...

what was the point???

perhaps a pic of the larger area???

we need to reverse engineer this one.. lol

its a bit late for taking out duplicate leaders... unless you wont mind looking at gaping holes in the greenery for a few years.. they will fill back it.. but it isnt going to be pretty ...

whats in between.. boxwood??? ...

in your pic... what direction are we looking ...

and how much sun.. hours per day... will these plants get??? .. will the sun be reflecting off the pavement??? .. and that is a winter nightmare ...

is there a power line above them ... or is that an optical delusion???

they can be tied in late fall rather easily ... we can tell you about that in october ...

again ... i dont understand the thought process of what was being accomplished ... perhaps removal is an option ...and that will solve everything.. lol ...

ken

I am of the "do not prune" camp. They are a lovely shape all on their own.

Heh Ken, didn't realize that the picture would be confusing, so let me clarify (also see attached photo from the front - left bottom arb here is the left arb in the original photo):
- couple of hundred feet of paving stone is our driveway ;) this is urban so lot is fairly small comparing to many of the people on this forum
- there is indeed boxwood in-between, but it's pretty leggy, so I was planning to replace it
- the house is facing west, so arbs line our northern border (well, it's west side); the photo in the original post is taken looking straight north, with house on the right (you can see a corner, barely), and driveway entrance on the left
- the road on the left is a city street, and beyond the fence is our neighbors
- the location is fairly sunny (from before noon to evening in summer) - there are a few very tall trees (oaks) around, but these are not dense
- pavement is matte grey, so don't think there are issues with reflections and hey, it's Canada, not Arizona ;) it may get very hot for awhile in summer, but generally this is not a problem
- snow, of course, certainly happens, but in Toronto it's not too bad; last winter was exceptionally snowy, and these plants had no damage whatsoever, without me doing anything (wish I knew about this forum last year!)
- yes, there is indeed a power line above, but given that we live basically in a park, most of the powerlines here at least pass through some foliage, often several trees.

Uff, I think I have it all covered! :)

cearbhaill, I agree that these look fine as is - FOR NOW. I like them. But these things tend to grow and change :), and I don't want to be the guy posting pictures several years from now, and getting replies like "aww, if you only acted a few years earlier, but now there is not much you can do. Remove/replant.". As I understand, with conifers especially, it can be too late to prune - so I'd rather check. and be safe than sorry, especially with people on this forum being very helpful. Considering limited space and overplanting, I know I have to prune regularly quite a few plants; I wonder if this helps with these arbs, as I can't really have them at 20ft+ in this space.

Thanks everyone!

'Smaragd'. Very frequently planted and usually full of stems.

They do tend to have multiple leaders. Sometimes they are sold with multiple leaders because bushy plants sell.

Let them grow, you can't really trim them much and have them look good.

I'm not sure what would be that bad if they got bigger, it will take years to overgrow the area, provided they do not get damaged by snow anyway.

If they get bigger than you want, cut them down and replace them, they are very commonly found and not very expensive in the 3-4 foot range.

This post was edited by noki on Fri, May 23, 14 at 22:05