A good friend of mine has a long, wide row of hedges in his back yard. They
are about 8.5 to 9 feet tall. (Yes, they are a pain to trim.) In the front
yard there is one gaping top section cut out by storm, injury or whatever?
This section is about 3 feet in length at most. I asked him if he ever
thought of removing the hedges in that area and replanting a fuller ones.
He said he'd like to but that it would take years for replacement hedges to
grow to that height and fill in.

Is he on target here or is a there a work around to this problem?