On your arborvitae trees the upright shoots from the green parts of the.

Oct 08, How to Trim Thuja Trees. To trim arborvitae properly, trim the terminal tips of the foliage. Make sure not to remove more than 30% of the tree’s foliage. Also make sure to only cut into green, young wood. Work in sections as you cut your tree to make less mistakes. Avoid cutting horizontal branches of your treegrinding.bar: Jeffrey Douglas. To prune your arborvitae, cut new the junction of new shoots.

Keep your cuts in the green wood. You can check before cutting by making a small scratch in the bark with your fingernail and examining the color underneath. Oct 02, Step 1 - Choose the Proper Season Prune arborvitae to reduce height in the late winter, before the sap rises in the main trunk. To thin out overgrowth, prune in mid-summer, so new growth can take hold before the tree goes dormant for winter.

Prune down to ground level in the early spring, before flowering and budding. I have a row of arborvitae that serve as a privacy screen to cover up a fence in my backyard. I did very little pruning or trimming of the trees in the 5 years I've lived here. Now, the trees have grown very tall, but provide very little privacy towards the bottom, where I want it. Jun 02, Arborvitae form a beautiful luxuriant green privacy fence, but need to be pruned regularly (every year or two from planting) to maintain a manageable size and shape.

Once arborvitae have grown too tall it's often more effective to remove them and either plant something more appropriate to the space, or embark on a program of regular pruning and treegrinding.barg: bottom.