Hedge cutting
A hedge keeps its shape if it is cut back to the same line every year. The trouble starts when each cut leaves a little more on than the last one.
Best timeMain cut late August into September
I cut the faces first and the top last, and I keep a slight taper so the bottom is wider than the top. That is not for looks. A hedge cut straight up and down shades out its own base, and within a few years the bottom metre is bare sticks.
The main cut for most garden hedges is late August into September, once the birds have finished nesting and the growth has stopped for the year. Quick growers like privet and leylandii usually want a lighter trim earlier on to keep them honest.
I check a hedge for nesting birds before the trimmer goes anywhere near it. Between March and the end of August that is a real possibility rather than a formality, and if there is an active nest in there the job waits. It is against the law to wreck one, and I am not going to be the person who does.
Hedge cutting, before and after
Drag the handle, or use the arrow keys.
Questions people ask
- When is the best time to cut a hedge?
- Late August into September for the main cut of the year. The nesting season is over, growth has stopped, and the hedge holds that shape right through the winter.
- Can you cut it right back to the stumps?
- Depends what it is. Privet, hornbeam, beech, hawthorn and yew will all take a hard cut and come back from old wood. Leylandii and most other conifers will not. Cut into the brown and it stays brown, so with those the height you have is more or less the height you keep.
- What about the neighbour’s side?
- You are entitled to cut anything growing over your boundary, back to the line and no further. Anything past that needs their say-so. Easiest thing is to ask them first, and plenty of the time they will want theirs done at the same time.