Urgent Help Please (Conifers)

[Natura]

Hi, please does anyone have any advice for me. My situation is this.. I was out when Gardeners came round to trim the row of Conifers in the front garden. Id asked them to cut the front part right back to the railing. They did that but also cut the tops down to the railing ! They have taken arounf 4ft off each 7ft Conifer. The whole trunks are exposed to the hot sun and of course the green is turning brown. I'm wondering if sheltering the exposed trunks (with weed material) from the direct sunlight for a short while will do good or not? I will be watering them every night. Please help, I've cared for them for 10 years nw and they have been great :(

[Kay Lancaster]

What will probably happen is that the top remaining branches will grow upwards and become a new leader. That's not a guarantee, because there are a lot of conifer species, and some of them will just keep growing sideways rather than forming a new false leader.

It does sound like the plants were poorly chosen for the site, and it might just be time to yank them out and start over. I need to do that with three big arborvitae here that the previous owners planted way too close to the house -- there's just no way to keep them in size. And a couple of years after that, I need to pull out some overgrown rhododendrons. By planning my moves ahead of time, though, I can keep things from looking like bare, new construction.