Thanks Embothrium, that's good to know; shouldn't be any trouble for me to prune this back into shape/size without getting into bare wood.

Just for my edification, what did you see that tipped you off to this being podocarpus not taxus?

there is probably no scale in the pix you have been looking at ... so needle size might be hard to understand ...

most yews have much smaller .. though similarly shaped leaves/needles .....

i am sure there might be exceptions ... but my point was that a scale often helps you understand what you see ...

ken

ps: see what i mean.. not a single pic with a scale .. but as i scroll down.. i can see some pix with the stem exposed ... and i can see that the needles of yews are comparatively smaller

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=compare+yew+and+podocarpus+needles&t=ffcm&iax=images&ia=images

Wow, yeah pretty slight differences! I wonder if at any time podocarpus and taxus have been considered the same species? Anyways, if leaves are the giveaway, I can compare to a female podocarpus that I have (pretty sure that one is podocarpus because of the berries) ... my "mystery" tree has basically identical leaves, so podocarpus!

The differences are more obvious/less slight than just some online visuals might provide :-) Yew needles are tiny in comparison - less than 1/8" wide and rarely longer than an inch. Podocarps can have needles/leaves as long as 5" and are generally at least 1/4" in width.

Also the growth habits are different. Yews grow very slowly; podocarps relatively fast. And yews seldom demonstrate that bushy, tufted growth shown in the OP photo. They tend to be dense and more or less evenly leafed from tip to toe. Looking at the pictured tree from a distance without enlarging the photo, I would never have suggested Taxus. It just doesn't look 'right' :-)

Thanks everyone, I've learned a little something today and good to be confident that I've got a podocarpus and can prune it :-)

Two pictures off the net which might help since they include hands for scale. As you can see the size and general messiness of Podocarpus (top) are obvious in the flesh. The shape of your tree and the leaf size as shown in relation to the fence make it unmistakeable.

I've had both. Yews in Illinois and Podos in California. Both can be pruned down to the "quick" as they say. They stand shearing. Podos are sometimes called yew pines. Go figger.

-Babka

Both can be pruned down to the "quick" as they say

= looking at stumps the whole time until they refurnish, of course.