All you can do is wait for them to grow

patience.. or remove them and put new ones in ...we arent talking about expensive plants here ... and if they are going to bug you .. heck.. lifes too short ...

they are pretty close to the house ... with no real space to grow ... so you are set up for shearing.. forever ... maybe you could set new ones out a couple more feet ????

ken

Yes, tip pruning with your hand pruners will help the plant fill in. So, wherever there's a bit of growth that extends out from the rest, cut it back. Everywhere you make these cuts, two new growing tips will be produced and in time, you will have a nice full plant. No replacement for the time factor though.

they are conifers ... which are trees .. and one of the things that disassociates them from shrubs... is the annual growth rate ... though i understand your use of the common term ...

many shrubs can be cut to the ground in spring.. and be almost as big by fall ...

trees simply dont grow all that fast ...

so the key answer above.. is.. patience and time ... or replacement ...

ken

....and judicious use of your hand pruners. This is easy stuff. Even that plant will easily recover, but it will take a growing season or two.

One caveat to my own words however is if this plant is for some reason in soil that does not drain well. Then yews get into real trouble. Or if for some reason lecanium scale has set up shop on the plant. You can see the adult scales but in this case,it is the juveniles which actually eat roots. So be aware of that. Lecanium scale is hard, brown, and about an eighth of an inch in size at most. Easy to see on stems and needles, if present.

Generally, the desired growth habit for a spreading yew is to fill or spread out, not fill in :-) The older (snow-smashed) ones have a very common appearance for this plant, which does not tend to grow in a rounded ball or mound but as a sprawling, almost groundcover-like shrub. See attached link of images of spreading yews.

And not to confuse, but yes, these ARE considered shrubs. Conifers (needled evergreens) can be trees, shrubs OR groundcovers depending on their growth habit and ultimate size. The term 'tree' is just a botanical convention used to describe the growth habit of a woody plant, not something that is necessarily related to a specific type or species of plant.

Is link missing?

It was.......fixed now !! Thanks :-))

Yes, yes, the word "spreading" does indicate the plants outline. But suggesting that this equates to an inability to cause individual dormant buds to pop via pruning of branch tips is nonsensical. If it were true, thousands of hours of pruning of Japanese yews all over the creation were for naught. But of course, that was not the case.

Tom, that was not the impression I was trying to convey. Only that the form of the "smashed" ones is perfectly acceptable for that type of spreading or prostrate shrub and there is little purpose to be gained by attempting to turn them into rounded mounds.

Got you. Hey, I was in "one of my moods" towards the end of last week. Oh well............

Left alone they will fill in. The branches will sprout where they have increased light due to the spreading.

I have some golden, unpruned on the sides, spreading yews that are over 12 ft. wide and I prune them to about 4 ft. high. Shearing is going to be a regular part of your maintenance regimen in the not too distant future.

About a month ago, I hard pruned a large, upright, Hicks Yew shrub. I cut back the branches so much that there are hardly any needles left on it. The needles that are still on the shrub are starting to turn brown. Do you think this is winter burn, or is it a sign that the shrub is in stress or dying? Is there anything I can do to ensure that it survives the hard pruning I gave it? Should I water it with Miracid?

Unc, I don't know where you are but that kind of pruning is better done during the growing season. I suspect you've got winter burn going on at the cut ends and associated regrowth. The good news is that all should eventually re-green.