Kent Hedges
The hedge maintenance specialists for the county of Kent.
Not a mow-and-go gardener. Not a tree surgeon on a day rate. A firm that does one thing, keeps a record of your hedge, and comes back at the right time of year.
A hedge is not a lawn, and it is not a tree
Most hedges in Kent are cut by somebody who does not specialise in hedges. It shows, usually within two seasons.
A hedge is a long-lived structure. Every cut you take shapes what grows back, and the mistakes compound. Cut a leylandii into its brown wood and that gap is permanent. Let a beech run six inches taller each year and by the fifth year you have a nine foot hedge nobody can reach. Round the top of a formal yew and it will take three seasons of careful clipping to square it up again.
Kent Hedges exists for the ordinary boundary hedge that deserves better than that. We work on privet, laurel, beech, hornbeam, yew, box, escallonia, griselinia, photinia, leylandii, western red cedar and the mixed native hedgerows that edge so much of the Kent countryside. We know how each of them responds to being cut, and when.
We compete on three things, and none of them is price:
- Quality. A hedge that looks like it was cut by somebody who cared, from every angle it can be seen from.
- Reliability. Booked, confirmed, reminded, and turned up to. No chasing.
- Convenience. Quote from a photograph, waste taken away, next visit already in the diary.
HedgeCare
We remember so you don't have to.
Almost nobody forgets to pay a bill. Almost everybody forgets when their hedge was last cut. HedgeCare removes the remembering from your side of the arrangement entirely.
- We inspect the hedge. Species, height, condition, aspect, how formal a finish you want, what the previous cuts have done to it.
- We set its cycle. One, two or three visits a year, timed to the species and to the nesting season, not to a generic calendar.
- We book you in. The visits go into our diary for the year ahead, at the right point in the season.
- We remind you. You hear from us before we come, not after you noticed the hedge had got away from you.
- We keep the record. Photographs and notes from every visit, so the next cut continues the last one rather than starting again.
Eleven ways we work on a hedge
Every hedge arrives at us in a different state, and the work it needs has a name. Choosing the right one matters: a hedge that needs reducing will not be fixed by tidying it, and a hedge that only needs tidying should not be reduced.
Hedge Tidy
The ordinary maintenance trim. The season's growth comes off, the existing lines are held, and the hedge looks cut rather than reshaped.
Hedge Shape
Precision work with a line and a level. Straightening a top that has drifted, squaring faces, and putting a proper batter back on the sides.
Hedge Reduction
Bringing height or width down to a size you can live with and we can maintain, taken only as far as the species will tolerate.
Hedge Rescue
For the hedge that has been left several years too long. A staged return to something with an outline, a top you can reach, and a future.
Formal Hedge Service
Box, yew, privet, hornbeam and beech clipped to crisp architectural lines. Slower work, sharper blades, and more than one pass.
Conifer & Leylandii Care
Regular control of the fastest hedges in Kent, cut often enough that they never reach the size where nothing can be done about them.
Tall Hedge Service
Large boundary hedges worked safely from platforms and towers, with the top cut level rather than guessed at from below.
Hedge Removal
Where a hedge is dead, dangerous or genuinely unwanted, taken out cleanly, stumps dealt with, and the ground left ready for whatever follows.
Landlord Hedge Care
Scheduled maintenance at let properties, with photographic records, without the landlord or agent needing to attend.
Commercial Hedge Maintenance
Shops, offices, schools, care homes, blocks of flats and industrial estates, on a contract with fixed visit windows and documented work.
Annual Hedge Plan
One, two or three scheduled visits a year at an agreed price, set to the cycle your hedge actually needs.
The Kent Hedge Standard
Ten points we hold ourselves to on every job, every hedge, every visit. Not a slogan. A checklist the person cutting your hedge works through before they leave.
- 01 StraightStraight edges wherever a formal finish has been asked for, set out with a line rather than by eye.
- 02 SymmetricalHeight and shape checked from several viewpoints, including the ones you see the hedge from most.
- 03 Hedge-safeNo unnecessary gouging, and no cutting into old wood that will not reshoot.
- 04 Wildlife-safeEvery hedge checked for active nests before a blade is started, in line with the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
- 05 CleanLoose clippings blown out of the hedge, not left sitting in the top to brown off.
- 06 TidyPaths, beds, lawns and driveways cleared before we go.
- 07 ResponsibleGreen waste removed and disposed of responsibly.
- 08 SecureGates closed and latched when the work is finished.
- 09 DocumentedBefore and after photographs kept on the record for your hedge.
- 10 ApprovedYou are asked to look at the result while we are still there to change it.
What sits behind the work
The whole of Kent
We serve homes and businesses across Kent, from the Thanet coast to the Weald and from the Medway towns down to the Romney Marsh. Sandwich, Deal, Dover, Canterbury, Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Whitstable, Herne Bay, Faversham, Ashford, Folkestone, Maidstone, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Sevenoaks, Gravesend, Chatham and Rochester, and the villages between them.
Kent is a county of very different hedges. Clipped box and yew in the cathedral streets of Canterbury. Salt-scoured escallonia and griselinia along the coast at Deal and Broadstairs. Leylandii screens on the post-war estates around Ashford and Maidstone. Old mixed hedgerows of hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple and hazel on the Weald boundaries. All of it is hedge work, and none of it is the same job.
Asked often enough to answer here
When is the best time of year to cut a hedge in Kent?
For most garden hedges the main cut is best taken from late August to the end of October, once the nesting season has finished and the season's growth has hardened off. Formal hedges such as box, yew and privet want two or three clips through the growing season, starting from late May. Beech and hornbeam hold a neat outline from a single August cut.
Conifers are the exception. Leylandii and western red cedar should be trimmed while they are still in growth and can recover from the cut, and never taken back into brown wood.
Is it illegal to cut a hedge with birds nesting in it?
Yes. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence to damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird while that nest is in use or being built. The main UK nesting season runs from roughly 1 March to 31 August, although birds can and do nest outside those dates.
We check every hedge before work starts. If we find an active nest we stop, work a different face of the hedge if that can be done safely, or come back later in the year. We will not cut through a nest to keep to a booking.
How often does a hedge need cutting?
It depends on the species and the height you want to hold. Leylandii and other fast conifers need two or three cuts a year to stay controlled. Privet and laurel are usually twice. Beech, hornbeam and yew are content with one late-summer cut. Box wants two light clips. We set the cycle for your particular hedge rather than quoting one frequency for everybody, which is what HedgeCare is for.
Do you take the cuttings away?
Yes, on every visit. The hedge gets blown clear of loose material, paths, beds, lawns and driveways are cleared, and the green waste is removed and disposed of responsibly. Clearing up is part of the price, not an extra line on the invoice.
Can you quote from a photograph?
For most jobs, yes. Send two or three photographs showing the whole run of the hedge, one taken from each end and one from the front, and tell us the rough length and how tall it stands. That is usually enough for a firm figure. Tall hedges, hedges over a neighbour's boundary, and rescue work on badly overgrown hedges we prefer to look at in person before quoting.
Tell us about your hedge
Send a photograph and a rough length, or telephone and describe it. We will tell you what the hedge needs, what it will cost, and when it should be done.