How-To Guides
What we know about hedges, written down. Reference material for anyone who owns one, whether or not we ever cut it.
A hedge is easier to own when you understand it
Most bad hedge work is not carelessness. It is a cut taken at the wrong time of year, with the wrong tool, on a species that was never going to forgive it.
Three questions decide almost everything about a hedge: what it is, when to cut it, and what to cut it with. Get those right and a hedge is a low maintenance boundary that improves for thirty years. Get them wrong and you spend a decade managing the damage, usually on a conifer that will not grow back over it.
So we write the answers down. These guides are the same information we work from, set out plainly. If they lead you to cut your own hedge properly rather than ring us, that is a reasonable outcome. Publishing what we know is how a specialist demonstrates being one.
Guides published so far
Added to steadily. Each one is written to be read once and referred back to, rather than skimmed and forgotten.
How to identify your hedge species
The twelve hedge species that account for almost every garden boundary in Kent, and how to tell them apart from leaf, stem and habit. Includes the single most important distinction in hedge care: which species reshoot from bare old wood and which never will.
Hand shears, powered trimmer or long-reach
What each tool is actually for, why blade pitch decides the thickest stem you can cut, why a laurel hedge should be cut with secateurs, and the height at which a long-reach stops being the right answer and a platform starts.
When to cut a hedge in Kent
A month by month calendar for the county, species by species, built around the bird nesting season and the fact that Kent runs two or three weeks ahead of most of England. Includes the months to avoid entirely and the reasons why.
Planting a bare-root hedge
Which species tolerate bare-root handling, the November to March planting window in Kent, the step by step planting method, and the two growing seasons of aftercare that determine whether a new hedge survives.
Nesting birds and the law
Under section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence to intentionally take, damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while that nest is in use or being built. There is no exemption for garden maintenance. The main UK nesting season runs from roughly 1 March to 31 August, though what matters in law is whether the nest is in use, not the date.
Check the hedge face by face before you start, and look again as you work. Every guide on this page assumes you have done that first. The full position is set out in the Kent Hedge Standard.
Rather we did it?
Send two or three photographs and a rough length. We will name the species, tell you the right month for it, and quote the work.