please help my mum

I think your uncle needs to fire up that chainsaw again, take down the trees and spend the rest of his life apologising.

 

Get the roots out so he needs to cut them down to about 4 feet giving him something to lever out. Don't bother trying to keep them, it will just prolong the agony of looking at them for a few years.
Don't replace them with leylandii. You could try beech, or perhaps some different types of tree.
I have a cherry which I think is called "Spire" and it grows narrow and tall, like a lombardy poplar but not as big. In spring it is covered in pink blossom.

 

Looking at those photos you don't need the trees to be half as big as they were I reckon, looking at the bedroom windows across behind the trees.
Can you take another photo from next to the house looking that way so we can work out the approxinate height needed?
The leylandii at that height would be unmanageable and it is obvious from the pruning cuts that they must have intruded a long way into your mum's garden.
I thought the houses were a lot closer than that. So take a photo and if you have a 6 foot or 8 foot cane handy stick it against the fence to give some idea of scale. I think in a few years you could get the privacy back but she would have her garden back and it would look a million times better.

 

OMG there done for..we cut ours down to ground level (Too much work to get the roots outso we did this) They were where the 3 pots are now..

 

No way those will regrow. Cut them down properly and youll have more light.

Grind or winch the stumps then think about planting something more suitable.

On a seriouse note he's luck he's still in one piece, an ameteure using a chainsaw at height is a very bad combination.

what happend to the waste?

 

My goodness
What you need is a new fence behind them for instant privacy, cut the trees down completely and re plant something pretty

 

I think they're thujas - but they don't grow back any better than the others do. Pity they aren't yews or cryptomerias....

I'd get them out and start again - don't think they'll re-grow, sorry.

 

Thuja has more of a red bark.

 

They will also regrow.

 

They will also regrow.

 

Do you have experience of that, David? I haven't mysel, and can't find anything to say that they will - I only know that yews (not strictly speaking conifers, of course) and cryptomeria will re-grow. If you have experience of them doing this, I'll be glad to hear of it.

Anyway- whatever the cnifers in question are, I think the time-scale of any potential re-growth is likely to mean that getting rid of those eye-sores is the best option, as seems to be the general consensus!

 

I get a bit crazy with new tools as well I must admit I'ave got to use them on anything in my path although I think your uncle maybe a little bit more eager than me Ste.....thank goodness the trees were the only thing in your uncle's path otherwise it would have been a blood bath Ste. :eek:
Helen.xxx.

 

I would put money on it that those are not thuja. thuja has a FARR more red bark.