cut those trees, any risk of heave?

[imiami]

I don't know what kind of tree it is, The tree just next to the house, it looks ok to cut, my concern is heave, If I leave it it might cause subsidence? next to this tree about 8 meters there are another two bigger trees. if I cut the tree in this picture the extra water might be taken by other plants?
Thanks

Remove or trim at the red line?

I doubt heave will be a problem as they aren't big trees. But I bet the roots are holding that slope together.
Also if you cut at the red line it might kill the tree - someone with greener fingers might be able to help with appropriate trimming to manage them.

Looks like they've been hard pruned before and grown back fine, I'd consider a 3 year coppicing type cycle, hard prune every 3 years and you'll get a decent dense growth without taking over the space.

Sure, it has heavy cut sign, I believe it won't die even I cut it with red line

Is it a birch? It can take a hard prune, but if you prune at the red line it could become top heavy with the flurry of new growth.

What are you actually asking?

It doesn't looks birch, I don't know the tree
This was in summer picture

They’re not large trees at all. Getting rid (if that’s what needs to happen) won’t affect your house at all.

but trees are good.

I want to pollarding the trees, but I worry it cause problem to the house

The root of the trees looks too big for House

We have somehow aquired a tree since the NDN put up new fencing .
I think its an Ash and I;m told they do self seed so I;m not sure where it came from , the fences were in a bad state before .Now it's in my garden !

It's fairly near the house and fence (NDN new fence ) but it reallly has to go .
I have other trees , I don;t want this tree .

The bark looks like some species of Prunus (plum, cherry, blackthorn etc). If it is, then you’re best waiting till it starts into growth. Prunus are susceptible to silverleaf disease, and a strong upward sap flow “flushes out” the pathogen, or, rather, stops it getting in.

I cannot imagine pruning as you suggest reducing the water requirement sufficiently to produce noticeable heave. Are you on clay soil?

However I am not an expert.

Ash is easy to recognise - buds in opposite pairs but particularly, winter buds are black.

Your house isn't going to fall down if you remove your small tree. The roots don't all need to be removed anyway. Most of them will sit in the ground and decompose into soil.

This is a very different age/size/species of tree though.

Sandy clay soil I believe

I'm not following this, I'm afraid. Whats the reason you want to prune the tree, is it to increase light (based on your photos?)

If you keep pruning it, it will look more like a bush than a tree, and one you start you'll find the tree tries its hardest to battle against being cut back.

it does look like it has been planted in an inappropriately cramped spot. I'd get rid, rather than snipping away at it, poor thing!

Pruning it won’t do anything to your house.

It’s clearly been cut back hard in the past but not kept up. I’d not cut back to the red line but to the original cut points, or lower. It’ll throw out tall stems from the cut point at immense speed. By the look of it it’ll sprout from the roots as well, with good management you should be able to get a nice coppiced effect.

does it flower?

I got too many trees and bush all around the front back garden, my concern is all of plants take so much water out of soil, if there is super dry drought year, the clay soil might be too dry to support the fountain, so I plan ahead, prune /pollarding first then cut it off, instead of affect the soil moisture suddenly...

By “fountain” do you mean a source of water for the house or for animals, rather than a decorative water feature?

I took fountain as a typo for foundation. Maybe it wasn’t

In with case, please don’t worry OP, pruning or removing this really rather small tree will not effect the ground in any significant way.

thanks

She was talking about being worried that eventually there'd be too little water in the soil to support the fountain, so I thought perhaps fount = spring. But she hasn’t answered so we’ll never know!

Heave is when there is too much water in the soil, and it freezes and expands.

This is so confusing but pruning one small tree will have such a little impact it really is not worth getting concerned about.

As there are another two big trees not far away.
And all of those trees are too close to the house.

You don't get problems with heave on sandy soil because it is fairly free-draining anyway. Heave is an issue on heavy clay which shrinks as it dries out, so when you remove a large tree, the soil absorbs water rapidly over a short period of time, and expands. That is heave.

That thing you want to cut back is far too small to cause heave by its removal or pruning.