Ground growing Scots Pine

DirkvanDreven

Shohin
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I'm growing a Scots pine in my garden. Three or four years ago I cut the first sacrefice branche. Now the second sacrefice Branche is due to be cut. I'm afraid now, that I already left it growing to long and I'm losing taper.
Can I cut the top of the sacrifice branche no to stop it getting fatter, or am I too late for that.
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MichaelS

Masterpiece
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Is the first pine the same as the second? Any way, the first one... cut it off about 3 or so inches above that branch with the screen on it and make a new leader with that. Also, the bar sacrifice branches are what's causing the thickening. Remove one completely and shorten or remove the other one. You can adjust the amount of thickening by pruning the sacrifice branches as needed in this kind of work. When you dig it up, make sure you spread the roots in all directions too as this will help to widen the base of the tree in the future. In other words, you can fix this problem but you will need to put it back in the ground for at least another few years. Cut the roots every 2 years with a sharp spade. The trick with these is to ALWAYS have a small branch ready to cut back to in the future (otherwise you will need to graft). You do this by cutting very short one or two shoots of the branches in good positions and let the other parts grow wild.
 
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