My neighbor Mike had a couple of camellias encroaching on the sidewalk. They looked like perfect candidates to transform into specimen trees while solving his space problem.

These plants were full to the ground but had gotten wider with age. Six upright branches headed up to the top of the crown.

Get a Pruning Plan

To transform them into tree forms, we planned to remove the lower branches and expose the main stems while trimming back the side shoots that were spilling over into the walkway.

Now that we had a plan, we rounded up the pruning tools. First, we needed a pair of strong-handled loppers to take off branches up to one inch thick.

We had to have a couple of hand pruners, too, to remove the branches that were finger-diameter and smaller. For the bigger branches and trunks, a small, sharp pruning saw would do.

Start at the Bottom

Starting with the lowest, we began removing branches, enclosing the base of the shrubs. We wanted to expose the bottom quarter to one-third of the total plant height.

We would separate the branch and its foliage from the plant and decide to keep or remove.

We kept the larger branches that would leave a hole in the plant above our magic one-third line. Those below the line we pruned out. We removed large, horizontal branches with the small pruning saw.

Expose Upright Trunks

All of the thin, inner branches below the one-third line were pruned out with the hand pruners to expose the large, smooth, upright trunks.

We made all of the pruning cuts in a way that left no stubs to take away from the branching structure. Damage to the remaining trunks was avoided by cutting just outside of the collar, or swelling, where the branch attaches to the trunk. These types of cuts left the remaining structural trunks undamaged and properly pruned.

After removing the lower branches and foliage covering the bottom third of the shrubs, we needed to shorten the side branches on the rest of the plant that were growing out into the walk.

These long shoots were tipped back by moving from the tip back to an outward-facing lateral branch. We made the cuts at an angle just above the lateral that remained. By shortening these long branches, the sides shrink inward, giving more walking space.

Finally, we stood back and admired our handiwork. One side was lower than the other and required a little touch-up. Several branches seemed too long and protruded from the canopy. A couple of quick snips, and they were back in place.

Now all that was left was to recycle all the limbs and leaves we removed.