My twisty baby is over grown and I'm needing to cut it back. It's well over 20' tall and I'm needing it to be around 10'. When's the best time to cut it back and any advice on how to best do it without it looking all weird when I'm done.

Also, I have little sprouts popping up all over my yard that look like little twisty baby trees...are these the roots?

Hi & welcome!

Are you able to add a pic of your tree?

Hi Michael and welcome to garden.org Is this the tree you have? Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia Twisty Baby™)

The entry above says it's supposed to stay smaller - are you feeding and watering it and being "too nice" to it? Maybe it's got its roots into the septic field or something?

The right time to cut it back would be in the fall. If you can post pictures of your tree from various angles after the leaves have fallen so we can see the structure, we can advise you how to cut it so it doesn't get to be an ugly shape. Keep in mind "thinning" out bigger branches rather than "lopping" the ends of the branches. Just cutting it back by lopping will cause it to grow in all directions and be too bushy and ungraceful next spring.