Now we're all stuck at home, it's time for me to look at trimming my bush

So bought our new house late last year, and the hedge is in this state: -


Hedge

Obviously the previous owner has trimmed it as far as he can reach with his trimmer (a couple of metres), and neglected the top and it's overgrown.

Any tips for cutting this back? Can it all go back to the top of the tidy bit in one go? Do I need to do it in stages? Will it look bare and never be good unless I leave it taller?

Never had much of a garden until this house so it's a bit of a black art to me. Don't want to go hacking away with a saw if I'll make it worse without following guidance.

Ta

Can't advise on the cutting.

Houses tend to have a rule where each house owns or is responsible for maintaining the hedge or boundary on one side along the line (ours is on the left for example).

Worth checking before you make changes to it. It should say in your property deeds. If you ask neighbours it can start all sorts of "discussions" with them (often best avoided).

quote:

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Originally posted by nick205
Worth checking before you make changes to it. It should say in your property deeds. If you ask neighbours it can start all sorts of "discussions" with them (often best avoided).

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Looks like a well established healthy hedge with loads of fresh growth on top. You could knock it back in one go but there will be a lot of gaps in the top which will fill in in a couple of years. Fine if you don’t need to look at it.
If you straighten off the front in line with fence and knock a couple of feet off the top this year it will thicken a bit more then you can keep chopping it down over the next few years in stages. That would look better.
We have got beech and leylandii hedges and have tried both ways to re model them.
HTH
Mike

Hi
You should be fine, decide what height you prefer then trim with cutters, looks to me as if the trunk/branches are probably not too thick, still more of a bush than a tree!
Dave

I just went across the top of the neighbors with a chain saw and took 4ft in one go. It now gets a quick trim in the spring and autumn. The top didn’t look great for the first year.

Anything over 6ft is a waste and just blocks everyone’s light.

i was in a similar situation, i bought a hedge trimmer and chain saw on an extension, gave up in the end and had a couple of blokes come round, they did it with the proper gear and disposed of the trimmings for the same money i wasted on the trimmer and chainsaw.

We heavily cut back a privet hedge one year, shortly before Christmas. It obviously looked very bare, but new growth re-covered it in the spring.

Box or privet hedges will recover after pruning, but cypress never will - they will always look horrible after pruning. They need to be trimmed regularly at the required height whenever they reach it, just snipping out the main leader shoot. If they're well over-height, you might as well dig them out and start again.

Agent Orange!

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Originally posted by gingerprince
Now we're all stuck at home, it's time for me to look at trimming my bush

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When mine when out of control, ladder up the side and took 4’ off the top, cutting is easy the clearing up is the pain!

Bloke at the bottom of our garden is a bit of a nob so I'll trim HIS conifer hedge on our side (which does get rather overgrown) and put all the trimmings back over the fence, either that or he pays someone to come into my garden and do a proper job.

Don't stick them over the fence. Despite popular belief that's against the law in most situations... You have to ask what they want done with them as they remain their property. If you just dump them over the hedge its fly-tipping.

[Edited on 29/3/20 by BenB]

Don't put it off....

We now have this challenge to sort. Previous owners hacked off what they could reach. I just wish they'd left it alone! As mentioned - hacked off branches won't grow back. We now have this situation where they can't really be trimmed down as it would just leave a trunk with a few whispy branches on the top!

I think our only option is complete removal but not only does this cost a LOT, but we would then lose the privacy and have increased noise...




Nightmare conifer

Whoever planted that probably thought that it would be nice to have a low conifer hedge... and bought the wrong variety.

I got rid of about 20 conifers after they were damaged in the 1987 storm. It was a lot easier than I expected - cut everything off, leaving a 6 foot bare stump. Dug around the base with a mattock (a most useful tool for digging up tree roots) until I was able to use the stump as a big lever to heave it out. I found that conifer roots are quite shallow - they go sideways rather than down.

The biggest problem was disposing of the branches - they burn easily, but a neighbour wasn't impressed as he was painting his windows at the time! (ash everywhere). The main part was sawn up and taken to the tip in a trailer.

quote:

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Originally posted by nick205
Can't advise on the cutting.

Houses tend to have a rule where each house owns or is responsible for maintaining the hedge or boundary on one side along the line (ours is on the left for example).

Worth checking before you make changes to it. It should say in your property deeds. If you ask neighbours it can start all sorts of "discussions" with them (often best avoided).

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