Cutting thuja in a spiralhas become fashionable, and fancifully trimmed trees and shrubs decorate our gardens more and more often. Therefore, we suggesthow to make a cut to form a thuja into a spiralwith an attractive appearance. This simplespiral cutting guidewill guide you step by step through all the steps - from choosing the right tuya, preparing your base for cutting, to performing the trimming itself. So let's go!
Thuja cut into a spiral
Fig. © PoradnikOgrodniczy.pl
Trimming thuja into a spiral is not a difficult procedure . However, it requires a lot of patience, both during the cutting itself, which must be performed very meticulously, and waiting for the plant to thicken properly and take the desired shape.
Step 1 - choosing the right plant
For spiral cutting, choose a thuja with a cone-like shape and well-dense twigsIt must be a plant that has one, clearly developed conductor. It will be the axis of the spiral. For the cut to make sense, the plant must be over 1 m tall, because on smaller ones the spiral does not look very attractive.
For spiral cutting, select varieties of the thuja occidentalis, which naturally take the form of a cone , such as the popular thuja Emerald (the correct full name of this plant is the Western thuja 'Smaragd' ).
Usually thuja has to be prepared for spiral cutting For this purpose, the selected specimen is gradually cut to form a cone, cutting off the tips of the twigs escaping beyond the contour of the cone (Fig. 1). We make such corrective cuts 2-3 times a year in the period from April to August. Thanks to this, we will form a cone out of the thuja, and the tree will thicken inside the crown. This stage may take 2-3 years, but it can be skipped if a suitable plant is already growing in our garden.
Step 2 - preparation for spiral cutting
When we have thuja in the form of a cone with thickened twigs, we can start cutting . In addition to the thaw, we will also need a hedge trimmer or hedge trimmer and a string or tape to wrap the plant around.
The tape or string is tied to the top of the plant, and then it is wrapped around the bush, gradually lowering the string or tape lower and lower to the ground.This way we will define the outline of the spiral(Fig. 2).
It is worth walking around the plant a few times, looking at it from a greater distance andassessing whether the string is evenly arranged, in a nice, shapely spiral . If necessary, we correct its position.
Fig. © PoradnikOgrodniczy.pl
Step 3 - cutting a spiral shape
We start cutting the spiral along the string from the bottom , from the base of the plant, gradually narrowing the cut outline upwards (Fig. 3). My suggestion is to make a narrow cut from the bottom to the top and then make corrective cuts by widening the cut area at the bottom of the plant. Thanks to thiswe will avoid accidentally cutting excess twigs
The effect you get will not be perfect the first time. After cutting the outline of the spiral, the imperfections of the plant and the gaps in the twigs inside its crown will probably be revealed.By regularly trimming the thuja into a spiral in the following years, we will achieve better and better stem density and a nice, regular shape of the treeIt may take another 2-3 years to reach the ideal.
How to become confident in pruning plants?
If you are unsure how to cut or simply afraid to do it, the fantastic book "Cutting School" will help you.Thanks to it, you will gain confidence in pruning plants and learn to cut plants so that they grow according to your expectations. After reading this book, your approach to pruning plants will probably change completely!
