How far back can yews (bushes) be trimmed without killing them?
There are very few shrubs that one can prune leaving “stubs”. Of the conifers, what is what I assume you mean by “evergreen”, yews are the only ones in that category. (I’m also assuming that they’re in NH as well) Yews have soft flat needles arranged in a single plane along the branch, they tend to be dark green with bright green new growth (which should be apparent now). You can pretty much hack a yew to any shape you want and it will fill in, which is why they’re so widely grown for hedges and topiary. Loppers, pruners, shears, hedge trimmers, it doesn’t matter; yews’ll sprout new growth from old bark. For all other conifers (like pines with long needles, spruces with sharp needles arranged in whorls around the branch, arborvitaes with flat scales, junipers with short painfully sharp needles, these are the most likely suspects), making drastic changes in the shape and/or size is much more difficult, if possible at all, because you’ll need to prune to a point that can still make new g
early summer can be a good time to prune back with a second pruning in mid to late august: http://www.bachmans.com/tipsheets/Woodies/Yews.cfm I always look to an educational source like a agriculture extension like Cornell’s: http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/schenectady/new/prunning_evergreens.htm and this from Michigan State Extension: http://web1.msue.msu.edu/imp/modzz/00001789.html it will take time but you can save those yews! Sources: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/shrubs/msg0808553919152.
