What Tips Can You Offer on Pruning Arborvitae After Snow Damage?
What Tips Can You Offer on Pruning Arborvitae After Snow Damage?Reader, Skipandwanda writes, “My arborvitae took a beating this winter. Should I cut the ones that are bent from the top and, if so, how? As for the ones that have lower branches bent outward, should those branches be cut off? Will they fill in eventually? Should the ones that took a beating overall be cut just above the soil or should they be removed?” Answer: Arborvitae is sometimes pruned so as to grow with a single leader, in which case extraneous leaders are pruned off entirely (right back to the trunk). If your arborvitae is young, it may not be too late to train it in this fashion. The ice or snow damage that caused leader branches to become “bent from the top,” as you put it, would provide you with just the excuse to perform this pruning. But if the arborvitae shru
