Thanks! Our gardener convinced me to cut our very old privet from its current 8 to 12 feet height to about 6 feet, and also to take about 1 foot off of each side of it as it was starting to be really overgrown. It is about a 250 foot long hedge so its going to take a lot of time (and money). We want it to be a bit thicker to hide a road on the other side of. Your two videos convinced me I made the right decision. Looking forward to seeing it fill in next spring!
Keep up the great work mate, I quite often tell my customers when I do a major cut back on a hedge or established shrub not to panic and put there trust in me, ultimately they're paying for my years of knowledge of how far certain plants will tolerate such treatment and this was a great demonstration of what can be achieved.
I remember years ago the first time I cut back a customer’s hedge, I thought oh 🤬 what have I done? But a few months later it looked like a million pounds and I’ve still got the same customer 13yrs later!
Gave mine a hard cut back yesterday. I'm not a gardener, but your videos gave me some confidence to go for it. I did look at it afterwards and think "what have I done" lol, it looks bare 😳😂, but I'm sure it will come back no worries. The problem I have is the previous owners of the house had not looked after it at all, so its grown out and bowed into both the pavement and the garden! So I've cut back the hedge inside this time round, when it thickens out again I'll give the outside a hard cut Thanks for the videos
Thank you. I grew my privit from cutting 6years ago. It reached fence height within 4 years and I've managed to keep it lush and bushy but this year it needs a good seeing to. Filled with lots of confidence now. Great follow up video .
Great video. I saw before then so pleased you showed us after. Thank you for this. Will have a go at mine next Feb I think. It's almost 4ft wide! Thanks again.
Good job sometimes the clients don't believe it will come back better than was before, I did it with overgrown Yew hedge looked awful when I did it but looks good just 6 months later.
Thank you for posting. Perfectly presented both in terms of delivery, manner and your knowledge and experience on which I am very happy to draw. Sound faded out occasionally in the earlier video so I missed some of what you said. I have a feeling your business does rather nicely. Subscribed.
Great video, thank you. You said for smaller space you would go for something else... what would you go for please? We currently have a privet that was planted by the previous owner. I agree it is far too vigorous for the space it has (a hedge line that is about 1m deep and keeping it 1.5m high). It's also looking very messy from all the pruning and was thinking of doing a hard prune this winter, that's how I found your video! I'm fond of something like a Yew. Do you think that would that be good? Thank you!
thanks for the vid ,im working on the hedge in the garden and was wondering if i could cut it back without destroying it ,thanks to your vid i now know i can be a bit more aggressive with the pruning cheers
Hi mate, hope your keeping well at this tough time...... when you say that you were cutting the fresh new side growth back as close as possible, how close are we talking? Like back to he first node or more like 3 nodes long or something? Thanks
Thanks for the content, this gave me the confidence to do my own hedge (a little early i know) When you cut all the new growth back on the sides, can you use an electric trimmer or does it have to be done by hand? Also roughly how long do you leave the new growth after its been cut (like an inch or two from the hardwood?)
Hi. Hedge cutter is fine if you are trimming off seasonal growth, I did hand pruning here as I was going into old wood. In terms of trimming back...tight as you can go to the previous cut is fine for most hedges. Thanks for commenting
West Country Garden Pro thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. I might not have explained properly but what I meant is, I’ve just finished doing the hard cut back like in your first video, so as it stands have just bare hardwood cuts exposed on one side. At the end of spring, when I first trim back the new growth, can I do this very tight to the hardwood cuts or do I need to leave a decent amount of new growth length in order for it to recover quicker? I’m trying to get the privet hedge I’m cutting as compact as possible Thanks again 👍
One question , and I would really appreciate your help on this matter, ... if you have a hedge that is say ten or twelve feet high and the client wants the height reduced by a couple of feet and you are having to cut through a mass of stems that are anything from a quarter to one inch thick , so too thick for a hedge trimmer, how would you go about it ?
Thank you mate, your reply is so much appreciated . I have done a couple of jobs in exactly this way as it was all I could think of , but always had a niggling doubt that there was some better way that I had not thought of. All the best
