My newsed house has some Chinese holly bushes which the previous owners just left alone. They grow great and are healthy, but they overhang the walkway and the entrance to the porch and I 'd like to cut them back. The 'net has all kinds of conflicting stuff out there, as usual. So, O great hive mind: how far can I cut these things back without killing them? It would be great if I could cut them back about 8-10" and level the tops out.
Pic of a couple of them:
This one has a 'bald spot' in front which I guess was from a earlier pruning effort, it was this way when I moved in. I just don't want to cut them back and have the rest of it look like this.
My house has normal (Murican!) holly bushes that were terribly overgrown when I moved in. Heard the same horror stories of cutting them back but what other way could you keep the thing at bay? I said eff it and cut them waaaaaaay back and had no issues with them dying or having bald spots.
alex
UltraDork
3/10/13 2:54 p.m.
I think you'll probably need to cut back hard and live with the bald spots for a little while until the leaves fill back out.
I'm open to the possibility of being wrong about that, however.
I don't mind living with some bald spots for a while, I just don't want to kill them off completely. Info out there is that you prune while dormant (they are evergreens, when do they go dormant? No info on that but I'd think it was wintertime), in the middle of the winter, not till after the last frost, late spring, late summer, holy cow it's all over the place. I'm hoping someone else on here has some and knows.
Fire up the Trooper and do burnout from one end to the other.
Yeah, I know. No help here. 
"FAH RAH RAH RAH RAH, RAH RAH RAH RAH!"
Fueled by Caffeine wrote:
Husqvarna.
No, no. CHINESE hollies, not Swedish.
I hate those things with a passion. I've tried everything to kill them and nothing seems to work other than just digging them up.
Soooooo just cut them back beyond where you want them to be when they grow out. It will be ugly, but only for a short time. Soon they'll be full & healthy again.
We had some at our church cut back to the ground and they grew back. I'm not sure you can kill them.
The bald spot(s) may be remnants of a grub infestation in the soil. If I understand correctly the grubs leave air pockets around the roots and the corresponding section of greenery that those roots fed dies back for some time.
If it a true evergreen prune in the early summer to make sure that the new growth that will be spurred by the pruning process will not be stunted by frost.
As a kid, I would trim a few of those back every few weeks. It was my least favorite yard work. Unfortunately, regardless of how far I cut them back, they never died.
4x4 in 4lo + chain + plant something that doesn't hurt when you rub against it.
patgizz wrote:
4x4 in 4lo + chain + plant something that doesn't hurt when you rub against it.
It was probably planted because it does hurt when you rub against it! (says a guy who lives in a house with a full row of those out front planted by the paranoid old lady who live here before 
)
patgizz wrote:
4x4 in 4lo + chain + plant something that doesn't hurt when you rub against it.
And that doesn't leave sharp needles everywhere so you can't run barefoot anywhere outside your house.
Fueled by Caffeine wrote:
Husqvarna.
This. Prune the E36 M3 out of them. They'll pull through.
Curmudgeon wrote:
Fueled by Caffeine wrote:
Husqvarna.
No, no. CHINESE hollies, not Swedish.
http://vminnovations.com/Product_5048/Husqvarna-435-16-Inch-40-9cc-Refurbished-Chainsaw.html
I have a bigger version of this saw. All around good stuff for a homeowner.
my fix would involve a log chain wrapped around the bases and the hitch of my pickup..
if you want to keep them ( which I didn't ... so did the logging chain thing), you can pretty much cut these off at ground level .. and in a couple/few years they'll be fine ... if they actually die you can replace them with something you like better
I like them so the logging chain is out, at least right now. But that could change. I have a brown thumb so prefer not to spend $$$ on something I'll kill. 
They're like cockroaches, they survived the dinosaurs and they'll survive a nuke.
FUS RO DAH!
I mean yeah, just trim them back.
Cape Cod has some pretty cool salt water rose bushes that grow ANYWHERE! I had to rent a baby steam shovel to rip them out, roots look like 1/2" shredded wheat.
I wonder if clipping them at grade and then Roto-Tilling would do it.
