Paging Baz: Pruning eucalyptus
 

If I may tap into your knowledge base.
Had a couple huge trees that were right on the property line and breaking up the neighbors cinder block wall so I paid an arborist to remove them, as long as they were there I had a bunch other old overgrown trees and bushes removed.

However there is one cute little eucalyptus, it went for years and never got more than six feet tall. Well, it took off and got to be more like fifteen feet and dangerously close to the power lines, it had three trunks so I asked him to cut down the two large trunks, he did but said "it will probably die."
Well, it lived and prospered, and now has about ten or twelve small trunks sprouting out. I'm thinking of cutting all but two or three of the largest sprouts out.
What do you think?

Hey Scott...would really help if you could post pics, but based on what you wrote, I would think you could take all out but the strongest "leader" and you'd be good to go.

Most Gum trees only have a single trunk anyway.

Ultimately though...it really depends on what your visual objective is.

AFAIK:
Eucalyptus are fast-growing trash trees, imported from that faraway distant place where people stand on their head.
They smell nice when made into balms.
Drop bears eat them exclusively.

But:
They burn VERY fast and hot during a wildfire.
They drop leaf litter everywhere.
The grow fast and aggressive like bamboo.
Chop it to a stump and it grows back.

They are non-native to the state of Cauwyliforniuha or whatever it is called.
Even the environmentalists want to get rid of it.

Yeah, drop bears are so cool.

It makes good fire wood :D

Keep the trees and start a Koala farm. :)

Yep, they were brought here from down under and do tend to grow like weed (which is odd because this one grew about a foot in +ten years than all of a sudden took off)

Good luck getting rid of them in Cali... look up the history of eucalyptus in CA and there are literally GROVES of them planted all over... the railroads were going to use them for cross ties but found the wood was no good for that (there were plans for other comercial uses but I forget what else they were going to use them for)... and farmers planted them as wind breaks all over... and architects seem to like them because they grow so fast and they are tall and skinny so don't block the view of the building.

Might as well try to get rid of tumble weeds ;)

I actually love the look of the tree itself - the foliage, the bark texture, and color....

That said, I've never planted them for a project. They are not readily available in nurseries in this area.

But there is a species called 'Silver Dollar' Eucalyptus that is an accent type tree that has a very architectural look to it:

http://originallaflowermarket.com/wp...us-395x250.jpg

My experience of this variety is it is susceptible to cultural-related issues like water relations and soil conditions, etc. But the foliage is very distinct.

My wife is from the PNW and was somewhat freaked by the sigh of our (L.A.) eucalyptus trees "What are those? Is it dieing, the bark is flaking off!" and the palm trees that she says "look like something out of Dr Seuss!"