Please help ^_^

[Brenton Mifsud]

^_^ Hi, my mum has this awesome tree in our front yard, it needs to be pruned as it is always sharply poking me in various places as if to say "haha you cant prune me yet". see my mum is paranoid that if she prunes it incorrectly it will die. She flat out refuses to let me near it as i dont even know what it is. Please help, i would like to know what its called, and possibly how to prune it ^_^

 

[Brenton Mifsud]

More photos

 

[LIcenter]

Could it be an Australian willow?

 

[Marck]

Greetings, welcome to the Forums.

This is a species of She-oak (Allocasuarina sp.) in the She-oak Family (Casuarinaceae). There are sixty-one species of Allocasuarina, all endemic to Australia and Tasmania. There are also six species of a related genus, Casuarina in Australia.

Despite looking like a conifer, Casuarinaceae is a flowering plant family in the Order (Fagales), the same as oaks, birchs, walnuts and many other trees. Even the fruit of members of Casuarinaceae look a bit like conifer cones.