Hedge Removal
Taking a hedge out is the one service we would rather talk you out of, and the one we do properly when it is genuinely the right answer.
When removal is right, and when it is not
We are a hedge maintenance firm. We would rather keep a hedge alive than take it out, and we will tell you when a hedge you have given up on is recoverable.
Removal is the right answer when a hedge is dead or dying, when it is a conifer screen that is brown on the faces you have to look at and can never refurnish, when it has become a line of trees rather than a hedge, when a box run has been destroyed by blight, or when you simply do not want a hedge there any more and would rather have a fence, a wider drive, a border or an open view. That last reason is perfectly good on its own. It is your garden.
Removal is the wrong answer when the hedge is only overgrown. A neglected privet, laurel, hawthorn, beech, hornbeam or yew hedge that has been left too long usually looks far worse than it is, and most come back over two or three seasons with one face taken at a time. That is Hedge Rescue, and it costs less than removal plus replanting plus five years of waiting for a new hedge to reach the height you already had.
It is also worth pausing where a hedge is doing a job you would then pay for another way. A boundary hedge is shelter from wind, a screen from a road, a noise buffer and a wildlife corridor. A fence replaces the screen and none of the rest.
Three ways to deal with what is left
Cutting a hedge down is the straightforward half. What happens to the stumps and roots is what decides whether the ground is usable afterwards, and it is where the cost sits.
Stump treatment
The hedge is cut low and a suitable herbicide is applied to the fresh cut surface so the stump dies in place instead of resprouting. This matters on the species that will regrow enthusiastically from a stump, privet, laurel, hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel and field maple among them. It is the least disruptive option, it leaves the stumps in the ground, and it suits a line that is going to be turfed over or planted around rather than built on. Conifers, including leylandii, do not regrow from a cut stump, so treatment is usually unnecessary on them.
Stump grinding
A machine reduces the stump and the top of the root plate to chippings below ground level. This is normally the right choice where you intend to plant, lay a lawn, put down a surface or run a new fence line, because it clears the obstruction without excavating the whole strip. It needs access for the machine along the run, and it produces a quantity of chip and soil that has to be either raked in or carted off.
Digging out
Physically lifting the stump and root plate. The cleanest result and the most work, with the largest hole to backfill and the most soil to bring in. On a mature leylandii the root plate is substantial: a wide, dense, shallow mat of woody roots extending well beyond the trunk, more spread than depth. Multiply that by every plant in the run and you have a serious excavation, which is why digging out a long conifer hedge is a different scale of job to digging out three shrubs.
The honeycomb nobody mentions
Even after grinding, a removed hedge line is full of dead roots. They rot slowly, and as they go they leave voids running through the strip, a honeycomb of old root channels through soil the hedge has already stripped of moisture and nutrients. Two consequences follow, and both are worth knowing before you plan what goes there.
If you are replanting: do not push new plants straight into the old root run. Take out the coarse root material, break the ground up along the whole length, and work in fresh topsoil with well rotted organic matter. A new hedge planted into prepared ground establishes properly. One planted into the exhausted strip left by the last hedge spends three years looking sorry for itself.
If you are fencing: post holes in a rotted root run can be soft, and the ground can settle over the following year as the remaining roots break down. Posts want to be set below the old root zone into firm ground, concreted properly, and ideally set slightly off the old line rather than straight down it.
Replanting suggestions
Where a screen is still wanted, the species we most often suggest in Kent are these.
- Yew. Slower, but dense, long lived, tolerant of hard pruning and recoverable decades from now. The best replacement for a failed leylandii screen if you can wait.
- Hornbeam. Holds russet leaf through winter and copes with the heavy, wet clay that so much of the county sits on.
- Beech. The same winter effect with a finer leaf, on free-draining ground only.
- Laurel or privet. Fast, cheap, dense, evergreen, and happy to be cut hard. Laurel is best cut with secateurs rather than a trimmer, because sliced leaves brown off at the edges.
- Escallonia or griselinia. The salt-tolerant choices for coastal gardens on the Thanet and Deal side.
- Mixed native. Hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple and hazel, the old Kent hedgerow mix, for a rural boundary and for wildlife.
We are happy to advise on the mix and the spacing, and to put the new hedge onto a HedgeCare cycle from its first formative cuts, which is when the shape of a hedge is actually decided.
Wildlife and protection checks
Removal is a late summer to winter job, and there is a legal reason for that as well as a practical one.
- Nesting birdsUnder the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence to damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird while it is in use or being built. The main UK nesting season runs from roughly 1 March to 31 August. Trimming a hedge in season can sometimes be worked around by moving to another face. Removing one cannot, because the whole structure goes. We book removals for September onwards unless the hedge is genuinely dead and inspection finds nothing using it.
- Other wildlifeOld hedge bases hold more than birds. We look for evidence of hedgehogs and other sheltering animals in the leaf litter and brash before the ground is disturbed, and we do not clear a hedge bottom in a hurry.
- Trees within the hedge lineA garden hedge is usually not protected. Individual trees inside a hedge line very much can be, and that is where people come unstuck. A Tree Preservation Order attaches to specific trees or groups; in a Conservation Area there are notification requirements for work to trees above a certain size. Where a hedge line contains anything of tree size we will flag it before quoting.
- A check with the council is sensibleIt costs nothing and takes very little time to ask the local authority tree officer whether anything on the line is protected, and some properties also carry planning conditions or covenants requiring a boundary hedge to be kept. We would always rather you asked first than found out afterwards. We advise on this; we do not give legal advice, and the responsibility for consent rests with the property owner.
- WasteEverything we take down is removed and disposed of responsibly, brash, trunks, stumps and chip. Nothing gets stacked behind the shed and forgotten, which is point seven of The Kent Hedge Standard.
Removal, asked and answered
When can a hedge be removed?
Removal is a late summer to winter job. The main UK bird nesting season runs from roughly 1 March to 31 August, and under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence to damage or destroy a nest in use or being built. Taking a whole hedge out during nesting season removes every nest in it at once, so unless the hedge is genuinely dead and we have inspected it and found nothing nesting, we will book the work for September onwards.
Do I need permission to remove a hedge in my garden?
An ordinary garden hedge is usually not protected, but individual trees standing in a hedge line can be, and that is the trap. A Tree Preservation Order applies to specific trees or groups of trees, and in a Conservation Area there are notification requirements for work to trees above a certain size. Some properties also carry planning conditions or covenants requiring a boundary hedge to be retained. A short check with the local council before the work is booked is sensible, and we will always raise it if the hedge line contains anything of tree size.
What is the difference between stump treatment, grinding and digging out?
Treatment means cutting low and applying a suitable herbicide to the fresh cut so the stump dies in place rather than regrowing, which matters on species that will resprout from a stump such as privet, laurel and hawthorn. Grinding uses a machine to reduce the stump and the top of the root plate to chippings below ground level, which is the usual choice where you want to plant or lay a surface over the line. Digging out physically lifts the stump and root plate, which gives the cleanest result and the largest hole to backfill.
Can I plant a new hedge in the same line?
Yes, but not straight into the old root run without preparation. What is left behind is a honeycomb of dead roots and the exhausted, dry soil that the old hedge lived on. The line wants the coarse root material taken out, the ground broken up along its length, and fresh topsoil with well rotted organic matter worked in before anything is planted. Give it that and a new hedge establishes well. Skip it and the new plants struggle in the same dry, root-filled strip.
Not sure removal is the answer? Look at Hedge Rescue and Hedge Reduction first. A brown-faced conifer screen may be beyond help; the beech behind the shed almost certainly is not. Where a screen is being held rather than removed, see Conifer & Leylandii Care.
Ask us whether it really needs to come out
Tell us the species, the length and what you would like the space to be instead. We will give you a straight answer on whether it is savable, and quote the removal if it is not.