On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 08:17:36 +0000, Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
"Sarah Dale" writes:
|
| Assuming you hedge is just needs thickening up - try the following
|
| 1) Shorten it to about 6 - 12 inches below your desired final height.

I did that with a privet hedge and regretted it. It didn't work.
The reason was that shortening a tall hedge to 6-12" below the
final height is likely to end up with a hedge that is thick in
the top 12" and has bare stems below. Most shrubs will shoot from
close to the cut end, and pyracantha and privet are two such.

Hhhhhmmmmm.... that is interesting Nick. I'm just trying to remember how
bad the hedge was when I first pruned it - given my old hedge was a
privet (I have moved house since).

I think I was more after general shape, height and a bit of thickening up,
my old hedge was reasonably OK round the bottom. You are right, the new
growth does tend to occur at the cut end of the branch.

Perhaps this is why the advice is to trim inside your prefered profile,
so you get a layer of dense close growth at the edge of the hedge profile,
while it doesn't (necessarily) matter if the hedge is a bit thin & straggly
in the middle (unless you happen to need a stock proof hedge).

The feeding part is important to get the hedge to thicken up - I've been
nagging my parents these last couple of months about feeding their hedge
up as it desperatly needs it.

Over several years of feeding & pruning my somewhat neglected hedge, I
ended up with a 6 ft high, 4 ft wide (at the base) privet hedge which
looked good. Mind you it needed pruning 4 times a year, so I'd not choose
to have one!

My present "hedges" (if that word can be used in this context) are a mess
of dogwood, a prickly thing with pretty pink flowers in summer, a shrub /
tree type plant that has grown trunks through 10 yrs of mismanagement by
previous owneres, the odd conifer, a prostrate conifer (!), and one
pyracantha to cath the pruner unawares.....

It is quite visually interesting, although as it is not evergreen (well
only 10% is evergreen) it is just as well we have a wall and fence behind.
The pruning technique is totally different to privet, and in year 1
involved heavy sawing to cut the tree/shrubs down to about 4 foot....

Sarah