hey honor ...

let me suggest.. your pic.. is a natural growing tree.. that has opened itself up .... by the weight of its own branches ... in having your pruned ... you have thickened it up ... contrary to what you now want ,..

the 'look' might be accomplished by a real artist with pruners... but i doubt you are going to find a online reference in how it is done ...

in theory.. it is bonsai ... on a giant scale .. and perhaps you could find ... sorta... what you are looking for ... within that realm ....

but the bottom line.. is that you have a forest tree [see link] .. in an urban setting ... frankly.. i would remove it.. and properly landscape the front landscape ...

this is an extremely fast growing forest tree .. that should never have been planted in that spot ... someone never considered.. that as a tree ... it would never stop growing... and as a forest tree.. it has incredible potential ...

time to cut bait.. and be done with it ...

now.. if it were out on my back 5 acres ... i might enjoy seeing what i could do about it.. and if i ruined it.. so be it ... but it wouldnt be blocking sunlight from my rentals ... etc ...

news i am sure you dont want to hear ... but regardless... i wish you luck

maybe you should try the bonsai forum .. who knows????

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: C in the forest

I would definetly not remove it. It is a very lovely tree.
Just contact a professional landscape service and see what they say.

Ok, problem is going to be most any old arborist, even "certified", will say he'll be able to give you what you want. However, actually having it look good afterwards is another story entirely. This is obviously a very healthy Cryptomeria that has grown the way it wanted to grow. (where, may I ask? Looks like the Bay Area perhaps?) If you really are upset about light being blocked to the windows and can't live with it, complete removal might be more pragmatic. Much as I hate to say that, because it's a beautiful tree. OTOH, maybe better to just let some tree company butcher it and see if you're happy with the results. You ultimately are the one who has to live with it: urban areas in the US are blighted with poorly pruned trees so another one isn't the end of the world. Can the world's best arborists do something with this that will leave everyone happy including the tree? Probably. The question is whether or not you have access to them and are willing to pay.

Btw the picture you linked to wasn't pruned that way; some are just naturally more open. Most connoisseurs would prefer the look of yours, albeit not blocking their windows.

Actually looks like the east coast on second thought.

You could remove the lower branches. That would open things up a bit.
Finding an Arborist to do that tree justice would be a difficult task indeed.
I say east coast also.
Mike

Yeah, too bad. A handsome tree but in an inappropriate location. Still, removing lower branches would increase the openness down low w/o chopping it down.

The experts at this kind of pruning would be Tree Shapers, a Bay Area company. It sounds like what you want is crown thinning as described here: http://www.treeshapers.com/services.html

"Crown Thinning
This is the removal of material throughout the inside of the tree. Thinning reduces windsail and weight, but could also be used for restoring the view so one could look through the tree. We also call it “daylighting” because it brings more light to the inside of the tree as well as the garden below."

You could contact Ted Kipping at Tree Shapers, include an image of your tree, and ask for a referral to someone in your area who is expert at pruning mature trees.

Here is a link that might be useful: Images of mature conifers that have been pruned

That type of pruning works in San Francisco where there is no snow. If you open up this Cryptomeria, you leave the remaining large branches open to more of a snow and ice load than they can handle. If not this year, then it will be the next one.
An alternative approach is to take out the largest branches. It's probably too late for this treatment on this tree however. A closer inspection would give more info as to whether it's feasible or not.
Mike

Good point about potential snow and ice damage - I didn't think about that.

I remember watching limbs drop off western hemlocks and doug firs in our neighborhood in an ice storm, peeling off lower limbs as they fell to the ground.

Dear Coniferophiles --

Thanks so much for your observations on my cryptomeria dilemma. They provided the knowledge base I needed to move forward.

I accepted early on that I would be unable to find an arborist with a special understanding of Japanese ceders in these climes -- alas, steamy Washington rather than luxuriously temperate San Francisco. In that context, I decided to go with crowd-sourced wisdom [you are the crowd] and personal judgment.

Accordingly, I decided that Phase 1 should be revealing the trunk. sugi style I hired an arborist who does careful work but does not pretend to know everything about every species. Because some of the branches are nearly perpendicular to the ground and some angle up, we discussed every candidate for removal up to about five feet from the ground, and we reached consensus.

The result is a large billowy Christmas tree becoming a large billowy conifer on a handsome exposed stick. I think it looks quite a bit better at ground level, and it lets much more light into the living rooms of the English basement and first floor.
[Ten photos of the tree before and after this pruning are linked to below.]

I mean to give the tree a few weeks to see how the first pruning will affect its health and the configuration of its remaining branches. Then comes the much more challenging Phase 2 pruning, intended to make the tree more open, less massive in shape, and narrower. I think an oriental look might best accomplish these goals, but I am not sure what is possible with this particular variety of cryptomeria.

My questions leading into a plan are:

1. Should I take more branches off the bottom, revealing more ot the trunk? With some of the remaining branches curving over, the five feet at the trunk is less at the periphery. .
   
   
2. Should I try to open it up largely by having selected branches lopped from the trunk as far up the tree as I can work? The dead zone for each branch is large enough so that visible cavities -- what the arborist is calling "windows" -- could emerge.
3. I know from my own pruning of the tree over time that lopping off the growing tips stimulates lush new growth there. If I trim some of the remaining branches back to the dead zone to somewhat narrow the tree, will the branch die back or will new growth occur at the cut?
   4. Finally, is it possible to mess with the leader, maybe to create a couple of leaders to soften the cone shape?. I would also like the option of controlling the height of the tree to about where it is now.. At present it is protected from most snow storms and derechos by the proximity of the linked three-story buidlings behind it. That will not long be the case as things stand now.

The last four photos in my array are possible pruning models. [Well, the final one is a pipe dream, even if I had the tree carefully pruned twice a year.[ The problem is that having looked at all 70 cryptomeria varietal descriptions -- some with photos -- on the American Conifer Society web site, I still have no idea what i have. It looks like Yoshino, but it is much bigger.

All help will be greatly appreciated. I may not deserve it, but the tree does.

Grazie mille.

hbk

PS Everyone who is not familiar with it should check out the Tree Shapers site linked to above by IshCountryGirl. Two galleries of living sculpture so sublime that even purists who insist on feral conifers will have to gasp.

Here is a link that might be useful: F St cryptomeria photos

Don't mess with the leader, and I'd be extremely cautious about trying to create any windows in the tree right now. Start by pruning up the bottom 1/3 of the tree and then let it grow for a couple of years before doing anything else. Big trees can be grown close to homes and look good, despite what many say here, but they do take work. I've seen big norways that look great where the trunk is only a few feet away from the house. The key is to not go overboard in your first steps. As the tree grows, it will make less and less of an impact pruning off the bottom-most branches. Eventually, you can have exposed trunk up past the second story windows, and I suspect the natural growth habit of the branches will open up some light/space to the third story. Give it time and help it through its awkward years.

good luck with it, thanks for the update. Remember, think before you cut hehe.

Anyone else can't find the pictures on the picassa link? I'm dying to see them.

Anyone else can't find the pictures on the picassa link? I'm dying to see them.

link shows message -----Sorry, that page was not found.

Dear Coniferophiles --

Mea culpa on the picasa link. I think I have fixed it.

Apologies, cheers and thanks. hbk

Here is a link that might be useful: cryptomeria photos

Would it be too cheesy for me to send a photo of the tree to Tree Shapers, asking just whether they think such a tree can be pruned to a scale and shape suitable to its site?

Clearly I am not in a position to fly genius pruners from the Left Coast here and back, but I know of no one else who might have a firm experience-based opinion.

Thanks.

hbk

Sorry but I think the best statement you got here regarding that is that although their pruning is very impressive, it is not applicable to a climate with heavy snows. As recent winters since 2009 have proven, we are definitely that. And another thing I can tell you is I've almost never seen a perfectly airy, open crypto on the east coast. Because when they do get a little too open, wind or snow starts carrying out further work on the branch structure. (NB another difference with the Bay area, is that they don't get hurricanes or summer microburst thunderstorms! Or wind-whipped heavy snow, which is what destroyed my arborescent Mediterranean Erica collection a few months ago. They can handle gently falling, powdery snow somewhat better.)
Sure you can try to get their feedback, though.
I'd rather you seek out someone with local expertise. Ask Scott Aker at the National Arboretum what he would do or who he would recommend. He's a civil servant, so, in my opinion, under some minor obligation to respond, at least briefly, to a legitimate citizen inquiry. And this certainly seems like one...I'm escalating you to second level support LOL...the gardenweb community has done what it can do! It's not like you're asking "can a plant a blue spruce at the base of my downspout" (answer - no) I remember he wrote about Cryptos in the Washingtonpost once, so I assume he's responsible for taking care of the big ones at the National Arb.

Thanks so much, davidtr28.

The good news: Even though it is clear that whoever planted the tree was not thinking about the future, a three-story building and its twin are cheek by jowl against the tree to the north. The buildings do a great job of protecting the tree from our occasional violent windstorms and from snow. In the two decades I have been managing the building, we have had no damage from the elements.

The less good news is that I fear you are right about whether the tree can be opened up in some way that preserves its health. I assume that Scott Aker is a good resource for that general question, and I have already discovered his email. Thanks so much for the name, and if he complains about the intrusion, I promise not to divulge my source.

Cheers and thanks again .hbk