Hedge renovation

Hedges are great for wildlife and the environment, but they need to be managed. Steve and Val Bradley show you how to control your hedge using planned prunings

- Steve and Val Bradley

HEDGES serve many purposes, from providing a clear boundary with your neighbours to creating a barrier for unwanted visitors in your garden or to stop people cutting across a corner. They can create a screen to give you privacy and can baffle the prevailing wind to provide shelter for other plants. You can even use them within the garden to divide a larger garden into smaller sections or ‘rooms’.

Whether your hedge is large or small, deciduous or evergreen, over time it will tend to outgrow its space or it may become damaged. Snow can weigh the hedge down and cause it to split, and strong winds can cause growth distortion.

Conifers can’t rejuvenate

Many of the plants that are commonly used for hedging respond well to hard pruning to rejuvenate them and, when successful, it is often difficult to tell that the plants have actually been renovated. However, most conifers do not have the ability to generate new growth from old wood and cannot be renovated in this way. The exceptions are Taxus (English yew) and Thuja (Western red cedar), which will produce new shoots from older stems.

Cutting down a mature hedge to allow it to regrow will deprive the garden of shelter or privacy, and leave it exposed while the plants recover, so the best option is to prune it back in stages rather than cutting the hedge down completely in one go.