If you have little life to speak of, you might remember my post about our garden’s leaning eucalypt, a cause for concern on windy days. Well, I’m glad to report that it’s been chopped down to the ground.

Our landlords sent a skilled arborist to fell it, along with a few other mature trees including one whose ailing head was still clinging to its badly split trunk.

My partner cut down the young eucalypts that grew near the house on a sloping bank. Many was the time, last Summer, when I envisaged those small trees fuelling an inferno and I was glad to see them go. Now that they’ve been reduced, I’m feeling a little easier about whatever the weather might throw at us between now and Winter.

I say ‘reduced’, rather than ‘removed’ because, as you know, eucalypts are practically indestructible. So it probably comes as no surprise when I tell you that all those that were cut down are now sprouting. I’m planning to keep them as shrubs.

Cutting a tree back at ground level is called coppicing and in Europe it’s done with all sorts of trees. The wood is used in building construction, to make poles and for fencing.

In the northern hemisphere trees were originally cut back for firewood and to feed animals during Winter. Coppicing is now used for woodland management, providing a variety of habitats that enrich biodiversity.

If you cut down a eucalypt to a stump, you’re effectively coppicing it. The stump from which it will inevitably re-grow is called a stool. Coppicing eucalypts that grow in gardens is a good way to keep them small. It keeps eucalypts in their juvenile phase, turning them into attractive and unusual shrubs.

It also transforms a tall tree into something a little more manageable – one that’s not going to rain branches on your roof, or scatter slowly-decaying leaves all over garden beds, or turn into a towering inferno during a bush fire.

Coppicing eucalypts and turning them into low-growing shrubs is a good way to manage what was once known as a ‘low-maintenance’ garden. These days it’s called a ‘low-input’ garden, meaning less work, less water, less time.

The trick is in knowing when to coppice eucalypts, especially in this part of the world where gardening is sometimes regarded not so much as a relaxing pastime but as an extreme sport. Too late in Spring, and the new shoots could be frizzled by Summer’s heat. Too late in Summer, and frost could have the same effect.

The right time to coppice also varies from species to species. I’ve read that Sugar Gums (Eucalyptus cladocalyx), that grow in western Victoria, produce the best coppice shoots after they’re cut down in September and October.

Pollarding is reducing the height of trees without cutting them down to the ground. One of the rapidly regrown eucalypts that I pollarded yesterday has beautifully rounded  leaves on pale red stems that have sprouted profusely from its coppiced  stool.  It grows on the bank, west of the house.

I brought some of the cut branches into the house for a vase. I’ve seen similar small branches mixed with flowers in florists’ bouquets and they contrast beautifully with a mixture of hectic colours.

I’ve read that pollarding might not be a good thing to do to mature eucalypts. It seems that reducing the height of larger trees can weaken them, causing them to drop branches as they age. The jury’s still out on how pollarding affects young trees. Over the next few months – as part of a house-work avoidance scheme – I’ll conduct experiments to find out more about that.

Right now I can report that possums regard the tender new shoots on eucalypts as their idea of heavenly hors d’oeuvres.