A Guide to Hedge Trimming

A well-kept hedge does a lot of work: it marks a boundary, gives you privacy, shelters the garden from wind and provides a home for birds and wildlife. Keeping it healthy and in shape is mostly about trimming it at the right time, in the right way, and often enough.

How often should you trim a hedge?

Most formal garden hedges look their best with a trim once or twice a year. A single annual cut in late summer suits many informal hedges, while neat, formal hedges often benefit from an extra trim in late spring. Fast-growing hedges may need cutting more often to stay tidy.

Timing by hedge type

• Conifer hedges such as leylandii respond well to regular trimming through the growing season to keep them dense and controlled.
• Beech and hornbeam are usually trimmed in late summer, holding their shape well into winter.
• Laurel is best tackled with secateurs or a knife rather than shears where possible, to avoid cutting through large leaves.
• Yew is forgiving and can be trimmed in late summer, and it will even regrow from older wood if reduced.

Reducing an overgrown hedge

If a hedge has got away from you, it can usually be brought back under control. The key is to reduce it in a way the plant will recover from, which sometimes means staging the work over more than one season for certain species. We will advise on the best approach when we visit.

Wildlife and nesting birds

It is an offence to disturb nesting birds, and the main nesting season runs through spring and early summer. We always check a hedge for active nests before cutting and will plan the timing of work with this in mind.

A tidy finish

Trimming creates a lot of clippings. As part of every hedge job we collect and remove the trimmings, leaving your garden clean. If you would rather keep some material for composting, just let us know.

Many of the same principles apply to trees. If you are weighing up tree work too, our guide to tree pruning costs explains what drives the price of a job.