When and how to trim a hedge
Trimming a hedge is not always just a case of producing a straight line. Here are some practical suggestions on how you can sharpen up your skills and make several enviable shapes and stable structures in the garden or around your house if you happen to live in the countryside.
Once, when we all were much much younger, some of us made some lunch money by pruning neighbors’ hedges.
Hedges are usually quite essential structures and, when pruned correctly, can significantly improve the look of your garden.
Hedge trimming for your Garden
- The kind of hedging plants, and also the design of the backyard, will dictate when and how to cut it. Informal, flowering bushes, like Viburnum and Escallonia tinus, are the simplest to take care of but come with an untidy profile.
- Leggy growth should be trimmed lower after the vegetable has flowered to maintain the form of the hedge, but eliminate shoots with secateurs rather than shears as this stays away from the issue of clipped foliage rotting.
- Formal hedges have to be firmly trimmed to maintain a sharp outline.
- Low-growing box hedges are cut with vertical sides, but bushes more than 30cm tall must be tapered slightly towards the top best to allow light to get to the bottom part of the hedge as well as avoid the foundation building bare patches.
Dos as well as don’ts of hedge cutting
DO Keep your shears clear and clean.
DON’T Clip evergreen hedges when they’re dried out, so during the summertime, hydrate the hedge the evening before a trim.
DON’T Be enticed to cut straight lines’ by eye’; some hedge clipping manual is required.
A portion of string stretched between 2 poles will be the simplest way to make a straight as well as level line to chop against.
Crenulated, pitched, domed along with other complex hedge shapes may call for a wooden template to guarantee a uniform condition along the hedge.
DO Look out for birds that are nesting. If you’re hedge clipping at the start of the season, check that you’ll find absolutely no birds nesting in the hedge of yours.
If you have, and your hedge trimming may disrupt them, put it off until the chicks have fledged before beginning work. This’s the law. Under the Wildlife as well as Countryside Act 1981, it’s illegal to harm a bird’s nest while it’s in use, or perhaps being built.
Hedge trimming for your Garden: when to cut what in your hedge
- May – Viburnum tinus
- May-September, every couple of weeks – privet (Ligustrum), hedging honeysuckle (Lonicera nitida)
- June and then in August – hawthorn (Crataegus)
- July or August – box (Buxus)Box mustn’t dry out when it is trimmed on a sweltering day clip at the end of a day when air is getting chilly.
- July, August or perhaps the outset of September – hornbeam (Carpinus betulus)
- August – holly (Ilex)
- September or perhaps August – Elaeagnus, yew (Taxus baccata)
- October or perhaps September – beech (Fagus sylvatica)
Trimming hedge shapes
Before trimming a hedge to a detailed profile, keep in mind that complex hedge types require much more maintenance.
To help keep the thoroughly clean line of the hedge, it must be clipped three times a year, instead of the once-a-year trim that many beech hedges need.
Tall hedges are hard to maintain, especially at the top. Clipping with the top part of the hedge at waist level may be the very least exhausting position to operate in.
Scaffold towers can be utilized to help you into the appropriate position. However, you want the room to maneuver them.
It could be convenient to make use of a physical trimmer with a cutting blade you can set to the preferred perspective.
Clipping small-leaved evergreens like yew or perhaps box into topiary shapes isn’t challenging and is enjoyable to try.
Cutting hedges for the very first time
With flowering bushes and vigorous nonflowering fruits (hawthorn and privet), hedge pruning should start the moment the hedge has been placed.
Reduce the level of the crops by approximately one third. This might seem extreme for new crops, but in case you do not, the hedge of yours will be weedy and thin at the base.
The following fall clip, new growth returned by 50 %, and begin cutting hedge side shoots on the width you would like the hedge to become.
Evergreens and slow-growing deciduous plants (hornbeam and beech) shouldn’t be lower after planting.
Trim side shoots by about 33 % but leave top shoots to develop.
The hedge is going to look tiny, but hold the nerve.
Clip when the plant life achieves several inches above the level you would like the hedge to become. This can promote lots of the hedge, and side shoots will rapidly fill out.
Renovating old hedges
Old hedges, precisely privet types, could start to appear empty in spots and need rejuvenating. Neglected hedges may have been decreased to a workable height and width.
Privet is semi-evergreen. Thus a loss of leaves during cold weather is natural, but in case you’ve plenty of patches with few leaves and twiggy shoots, it may be better to reduce the hedge difficult returned directly into the existing branches.
Privet responds very well to this and will send up new shoots, which may be cut every three months to motivate them to bush out instead of growing straight up.
Yew may also be cut to bare branches, but it’s ideal for performing one aspect of the hedge, letting it regrow, and after that, to accomplish the complete opposite side.
New growth is going to appear on the existing bare branches within a couple of weeks. Feed the hedge using a mulch of compost, or perhaps manure plus these new shoots will apply approximately 20cm of development within the very first year. Hedge trimming for your Garden will be fun.
Conclusion on Hedge trimming for your Garden
- When pruning or perhaps trimming mature hedges, probably the thickest branches should be taken out first to help promote more significant growth.
- In areas with ice and snowfall, it’s recommended to make rounded tops on shrubs and hedges to stop them from having accumulation, which can harm internal branches.
- When pruning evergreens. Larger, individual stems must be cut off first.
- Evergreens that have narrow leaves should be pruned when they’re young, as this can end up in growth that is controlled and enhanced health.
- Evergreens with broad leaves don’t require care that is much. They are okay to go numerous seasons without significant trimming. If a considerable amount of older wood is removed, it can impair new growth. Aim to do small but often.
- Manual Shears are very simple to deal with, as well as generate trimming internal branches a cinch. Use these to eliminate any incredibly heavy components before finishing off things with a durable and powerful hedge trimmer.
- Start from the bottom part and make the way of yours up. Overgrown hedges can deal with extensive trim, but be careful not to sever the primary branches which nourish the top.
- If likely, trim hedges in mid-morning. This’s once the dew has evaporated, and there’s limited moisture in the atmosphere. If not possible, the goal for the late afternoon.
- Hedge trimming for your Garden is also good for your health.