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.
What left too long looks like
Nobody decides to let a hedge go. It happens through a house move, an illness, a gardener who stopped coming, or three summers with something more pressing to do.
By the time people ring us, the hedge usually has most of these: a top nobody can reach from a ladder, faces grown out over a path, a bare leggy base because the top shades it, brambles and ivy through the middle, and one or two stems that have stopped being hedge and started being trees. Often it sits well over the boundary, and sometimes a neighbour has mentioned it more than once.
None of that is unusual and very little of it is hopeless. It does mean this is not a tidy: cutting the season's growth off a hedge in this state changes nothing, because it is still too tall, too wide and bare at the bottom. Rescue aims at a size and shape that can then be maintained normally. We look at these in person rather than quoting from photographs, because too much depends on what is inside the hedge.
What we look at before we quote
The judgement comes down to where new growth will come from once we cut. That is a species question first and a condition question second.
- SpeciesPrivet, laurel, hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple and hazel regenerate strongly from hard cutting. Beech and hornbeam come back from old wood, more slowly. Yew breaks from bare brown stems. Leylandii and other Cupressaceae will not, which changes everything.
- Depth of greenWe part the foliage along the run and measure the living shell on each face, and check whether any leaf is left low down. On a conifer that first number is the hard limit on how far the sides can come in.
- Stems that became treesWhere plants have run well above the hedge line, we decide which are cut back in and which come out entirely.
- What else is living in itIvy, bramble, elder and self-seeded ash and sycamore are usual. They come out as part of the work, or this all happens again in three years.
- Access and boundaryWhat can be reached safely, from which side, and whether any of the work sits over a neighbour's land. Very tall runs move to the Tall Hedge Service, cut level from a platform rather than guessed at from below.
Two or three seasons, one face at a time
A hedge that took eight years to get into this state is not coming out of it in one afternoon. Renovation is staged, so the plant keeps enough leaf to power its recovery and you keep some screening.
First season: height and the worse face
The top comes down to a workable height and the more overgrown face is taken back hard, while the other keeps its leaf. Ivy and bramble come out, and the hedge is left with a defined, if severe, outline.
Second season: the other face
Once the first cut face has broken and started to clothe over, the second side comes back to match. The top is trued to a line and the sides set with a batter, narrower at the top than the base, so light reaches the bottom again.
Third season if needed
On very large or very old hedges a final pass tightens the outline and cuts the ends, gateways and returns in properly.
Then a normal cycle
Rescue is only worth paying for if the hedge is then cut on time. We set the cycle at the end of the renovation and keep the record, which is what HedgeCare is for, or fix the year under an Annual Hedge Plan.
Overgrown hedges are where the birds are
A dense, neglected hedge is the best nesting habitat in most gardens, and rescue work is exactly the cutting that destroys nests. Under 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.
So we inspect properly before a blade starts. Where we find an active nest we stop, work another face if that can be done without disturbing it, or come back later in the year. Renovation suits the dormant season anyway, which puts the two considerations on the same side. If you telephone in June about a badly overgrown hedge, expect us to talk about September.
Gaps, and the hedges that are past saving
Will the gaps fill in?
On broadleaf and mixed hedges, usually yes. Privet, laurel, hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel and field maple all shoot from old wood, and once light reaches the base a bare bottom furnishes within a season or two. Beech and hornbeam take longer. Yew, alone among the conifers, breaks from bare brown stems.
On leylandii, western red cedar and the rest of the Cupressaceae, no. Brown wood stays brown, so a gap in a conifer hedge is permanent: work around it, plant in front of it, or replace that section. Anyone telling you a bare leylandii will green over is selling you a visit rather than a result.
When the answer is no
Some hedges have gone too far. A leylandii screen with a metre of bare brown on both faces and nothing living below head height has no shape left to recover. Where that is what we find, we say so at the quotation stage and quote for removal and replanting instead, because a new hedge cut properly from year one will beat a rescued wreck within five years.
We would rather lose the job than take money for work that cannot succeed. That is written into the Kent Hedge Standard: no cutting into old wood that will not reshoot.
What the first visit involves
Rescue visits are longer, messier and better planned than a maintenance cut.
- A nesting check first. Both faces and the crown, before any equipment starts.
- The lines agreed on site. We mark the finished height and faces with canes and a string line and walk it with you, so the severity of the first cut is no surprise.
- Heavy growth taken out by hand. Thick stems cut properly rather than torn out with a trimmer, and ivy and bramble followed back to the root.
- Height down, one face back, and the base opened up. The staged cut, worked to the marks rather than by eye, with growth cleared off the bottom so light reaches it.
- A serious clear up. A rescue produces a great deal of material. The hedge is blown clear, paths, beds and lawns cleared, and the green waste removed and disposed of responsibly.
- Photographs, notes and the next stage booked. The set-out recorded, so the second season continues the plan, and a date already in the diary.
Afterwards, ongoing work moves to Hedge Tidy, with Hedge Shape where the outline still needs truing and Hedge Reduction if it must come down further. Conifers sit under Conifer & Leylandii Care, on a cycle tight enough that this never happens twice.
Let us look at it before you give up on it
Overgrown hedges are worth seeing in person. We will tell you what can be saved, what cannot, how many seasons it takes, and what it costs.