Hi Mike

Not a 'gardening gardener' but I can answer that one. We have two of the
beasts and they are of a different variety.

Number One I trimmed right back to the main trunk, then read on the
newsgroup what you have read, that it will stay brown. Not so in our case,
it has sprouted right back from the main trunk and needs trimming again.

Number two is a big one, (The former only about 10 ft high) running up to
about 20 - 25ft. I topped it about 12 feet and cut one side right back to
the mass of branches within about 6 inches from the main stem. That has
stayed brown with just a few whispers of green sprouting, but in answer to
you question re Ivy, that has started to climb the brown side this year. Not
reached such a height to cover the brown, but we wait and see.

Another Mike

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"mcloone" wrote in message
m...
Hi,
moved into my house about 1 yr ago. Our neighbours have a high
leylandii hedge. It was around 18 ft high but they've trimmed it to
around 14ft. It was planted about 6 inches from the border fence. They
employed a gardener to trim the side and top. I asked their gardener
to trim the sides back to the boundary which he has done.
Now the bottom 10ft or so is brown and the top 4 ft is dark green. I
did not particularly like the high hedge extending into our garden but
now that its almost all brown and dead looking i like it less.
Will the brown parts turn green in the spring? Frome my searches on
this forum it looks like it will stay brown. If teh hedge will not
turn green is there anything I could plant such as ivy which might
grow over the dead branches to provide some greenery next year?
Thanks for any advice, Mike