Overgrown Privet Help
 

I am in zone 4 and have a string of about 10 privets running the lot line.
Previous owners let these grow wildly out of control - I doubt that these
were ever pruned or trimmed. They are roughly 15ft tall and wide but
orignally had only a spattering of foilage. Each year, I've gone in and
mainly concentrated on trimming out dead and damaged limbs and cutting out
the other things growing in the middle of the privets (ie, little maple
trees, weeds, etc) - this takes forever because it is a tangled mess of a
decade or more without being maintained. However, the privets now have an
abundance of foilage.

They seem much healthier now and I would like to go in and get their size
under control and this will also help me get in and continue to prune away
dead limbs and other things that I just can't weave my way to reach right
now. What's the best way to get these trimmed down to size? I'd like to take
them from 15 ft tall and wide to around 6-8 ft tall and wide then I plan to
keep them pruned and trimmed to that size. Many of the branches are too
large for most hedge trimmers, so do I just take a chain saw and swipe up,
down and across to take 7 ft off the bush?

"Steve" wrote in message
...
I am in zone 4 and have a string of about 10 privets running the lot line.
Previous owners let these grow wildly out of control - I doubt that these
were ever pruned or trimmed. They are roughly 15ft tall and wide but
orignally had only a spattering of foilage. Each year, I've gone in and
mainly concentrated on trimming out dead and damaged limbs and cutting out
the other things growing in the middle of the privets (ie, little maple
trees, weeds, etc) - this takes forever because it is a tangled mess of a
decade or more without being maintained. However, the privets now have an
abundance of foilage.

They seem much healthier now and I would like to go in and get their size
under control and this will also help me get in and continue to prune away
dead limbs and other things that I just can't weave my way to reach right
now. What's the best way to get these trimmed down to size? I'd like to
take
them from 15 ft tall and wide to around 6-8 ft tall and wide then I plan
to
keep them pruned and trimmed to that size. Many of the branches are too
large for most hedge trimmers, so do I just take a chain saw and swipe up,
down and across to take 7 ft off the bush?

I would be as brutal as need be. When I moved in to this house, the
previous homeowner let one go for about 6 years. I have aggressively pruned
it into a tree shape, cutting out many of the branches, cleaning out the
cross growth, and drastically pruning the height. I use a bow saw on the
larger branches. It will look like hell this year, but by next year no one
will know that you did major surgery.

Chain saws used where they will contact more than one stem at a time
are very dangerous, kickback and the chain jumping the bar are more
frequent under these conditions.
When you take these privet down take them a foot or more lower than you
intend to maintain and keep them wider at the base than the top.

"Steve" wrote in message
...
I am in zone 4 and have a string of about 10 privets running the lot line.
Previous owners let these grow wildly out of control - I doubt that these
were ever pruned or trimmed. They are roughly 15ft tall and wide but
orignally had only a spattering of foilage. Each year, I've gone in and
mainly concentrated on trimming out dead and damaged limbs and cutting out
the other things growing in the middle of the privets (ie, little maple
trees, weeds, etc) - this takes forever because it is a tangled mess of a
decade or more without being maintained. However, the privets now have an
abundance of foilage.

They seem much healthier now and I would like to go in and get their size
under control and this will also help me get in and continue to prune away
dead limbs and other things that I just can't weave my way to reach right
now. What's the best way to get these trimmed down to size? I'd like to
take
them from 15 ft tall and wide to around 6-8 ft tall and wide then I plan
to
keep them pruned and trimmed to that size. Many of the branches are too
large for most hedge trimmers, so do I just take a chain saw and swipe up,
down and across to take 7 ft off the bush?

I have a privet hedge about 200 feet long. They were a little leggy with
mostly top growth. A nursery person said I could cut them all the way down
to a foot or so. Very early spring was suggested but I was already well into
it. Through some selective pruning, it looks better already for this year so
I may not do it next spring. Be careful with that chain saw.

Our experience is that they are quite hardy and will survive even the
harshest pruning. We finally dug ours out and replaced them with
boxwood, mostly because the privets were so fast growing that they had
to be pruned virtually weekly, and my wife was getting tired.

If you want the final hedge to be six feet, I would prune to four feet;
that way you will have new growth to six feet that is a lot easier to
prune than the trunks you probably have now.

Steve wrote:
I am in zone 4 and have a string of about 10 privets running the lot line.
Previous owners let these grow wildly out of control - I doubt that these
were ever pruned or trimmed. They are roughly 15ft tall and wide but
orignally had only a spattering of foilage. Each year, I've gone in and
mainly concentrated on trimming out dead and damaged limbs and cutting out
the other things growing in the middle of the privets (ie, little maple
trees, weeds, etc) - this takes forever because it is a tangled mess of a
decade or more without being maintained. However, the privets now have an
abundance of foilage.

They seem much healthier now and I would like to go in and get their size
under control and this will also help me get in and continue to prune away
dead limbs and other things that I just can't weave my way to reach right
now. What's the best way to get these trimmed down to size? I'd like to take
them from 15 ft tall and wide to around 6-8 ft tall and wide then I plan to
keep them pruned and trimmed to that size. Many of the branches are too
large for most hedge trimmers, so do I just take a chain saw and swipe up,
down and across to take 7 ft off the bush?