hi and welcome back to garden ninja today's video is gonna be all about
hedge trimming so whether you're a beginner or you've been clipping hedges
for years I'm going to be giving you some top tips to make it as efficient and
get the best results out of the hedges so come on let's get clipping!
So first things first we need to go through the tools that you're going to
need to cut and trim your hedges so really you've got two main options the
first power tools whether that be petrol or electric and the second
is manual and they've both got the advantages and disadvantages and I'll
take you through those now so with your power tools the main advantage is that
they are fast again you don't need much effort to start clipping your hedges so
if you want to use the manual hedge clipper method you're probably going to
be looking at a pair of shears now it's a lot more labor-intensive you're gonna
need some upper body strength to be able to clip the whole hedge using hand
shears but the benefit for those that are really particular on detail is that
they will give you a razor sharp cut worries with electric hedge trimmers and
petrol hedge clippers sometimes you'll find that the blade will tear through
the leaves with hand shears if they're sharp you're always going to get and
laser sharp cut and the benefit of that is that the plant will heal quicker and
you're going to much need to finish which is really important if you're
cutting larger leaf specimens like cherry laurel or Griselinia because
if you use a hedge clipper and you cut through all the leaves and leave them
ragged the risk is that they were crisp up and look a little bit ugly whilst
they dry up on the top of the hedge but it really is up to you and how much time
you've got personally I would go with the hedge trimmer method and use and
save the hand shears things like topiary or really small detail parts of hedges.
Now when you're ready to start clipping your hedge it's really important start
from the bottom and move up and that's primarily for safety I've seen so many
times people start to cut the hedge they're going down they might hit snag
they put some more force on and soon straight down and you might damage
yourself so it's a lot easier if you're going upwards and you hit that snag if
you just get a bit stuck all you're gonna do is go all the way up. So you're
not going to come down causing injury to your legs so again don't forget your safety
gear goggles and take your time so starting at the bottom we're gonna
move our way up towards the top.
So here's another top tip with your hedges so we've just talked about
starting at the bottom and working our way up then you always want the top to
be slightly narrower compared to the bottom and that's for two reasons the
first reason is if you create a perfect box what will happen is that the
sunlight will hit the top and it won't be able to get all the way down so
you'll get loads of growth on top and then you'll end up the kind of a really
deprived straggling bit the bottom the second reason which is often overlooked
is if you live somewhere that's gonna get snow in the winter if you cover it
like this it's a lot easier for snow to fall off without damaging the hedge if
you've got a complete square edge a big drift of snow can sit on there and
that's an awful lot of weight for hedge to take and eventually the hedge will
give way and it's gonna snap so it's really important that you use a
camber to both protect the hedge from winter weather and also ensure that you
get even growth.
So another question and frequently asked and when is the best time to clip and
trim your hedges and it really depends on the type of hedge you're clipping the
overall finish and whereabouts you based in the UK we have to be mindful of
nesting birds so anytime between sort of the end of March through to August is a
risky time because there may be birds in there that have nested if you go to trim
the hedge you can scare them off you can injure them you can leave their young
without parents so we don't want to do that I tend to clip my hedges late
February and then towards the end of August and what that means is that the
clip at the end of August will take my hedges through the winter because the
growth is going to slow down come Artem leaving with a crisper finish.
Now you may remember I planted this hedge two years ago and did a guide on
how to plant a hedge and it's come on leaps and bounds it's an absolutely
humongous but just brilliant it's what I wanted but it's a great example as well
for move back of an evergreen hedge so this is a Griselinia and it does
have large leaves and before I was saying that if you use a hedge trimmer
on this and the hedge trimmers not razor sharp you can end up with torn leaves
which isn't too detrimental to the plant but it can look ugly so if you want a
pristine finish I'd always recommend that if you've got the time
use hand shears on larger leaves hedges to give that perfect finish so if you
look behind me I've got roughly 150 meters of this to clip so it's probably
going to take me the best part of a full day with cleanup with hedge trimmers
though probably do this in about half the time so with the hand shears the
first thing you're going to notice is the super clean sharp cut like you can
see here and it means that the plant is in less stress because the cut is
cleaner and there's less damage but it does take an awful lot longer with hand
shears it's a labor of love and I use them on my very important hedges where I
want a really clean cut topiary or small specimens if you type or then electric
hedge trimmers are going to be far quicker and efficient than a pair of
beautifully made yet slow hand shears!
Now even if you've just planted your hedge you're going to need to trim
it even in the first year and what that will do is send the energy further down
the plant for it to bush out. There is a bit of a habit of people
planting hedges and just thinking I'll let them grow really tall and what I
want privacy but the fact is all you're going to encourage is these really tall
gangly plants by taking off the section at the top of that hedge you're
encouraging it to push together and mesh together is a really dense hedge and
that's what you want so you need to be a bit patient and think about the long
term rather than the immediate height that you might be able to get without
the volume.
So when it comes to tidying up the clippings for your head cutting you may
have seen other advice says that you should lay out a tarpaulin or cloth
then clip your hedges and then you can move the tarpaulin with all the
clippings on and put them somewhere else like in the bin or compost bin. However in
all my experience I found when I've done that it's actually a bit of a fuss
by the time you've done it lifted it and moved it you might as well have got
your brush out and just swept up the clippings now there is one
exception to this which is if you're putting hedges or topiary onto gravel or
shingle if you're doing that then I certainly would put down some sheeting
because if not you're gonna find it really difficult to get all of those
clippings out from onto the gravel all of the maps dustpan and brush and off
you go now you may find that with hedge trimmers there's a few bits still need a
little bit of light pruning such as snags tears or missed bits because you
can't get close enough with a simple sharp pair of secateurs go back around
clip off anything that's either been damaged or still needs a good trim!
It's also worth bearing in mind it's far easier to clip these fresh green shoots
than old establish woody material so a stitch in time really just saved my
I always make sure you check what the maximum thickness that your hedge
trimmers can trim through there's no point trying to pull it through really
thick establish branches if your hedges overgrown and it's really thick use a
chainsaw first to take out the majority at the height before using hedge
trimmers to leave it off so another top tip once you've trimmed all your hedges
is that you can compost all of the clippings now just bear in mind that
head clippings are probably going to be quite high in brown carbon so you may
need to add some grass clippings or with a green nitrogen-rich material to help
break them down if your clippings are too large I tend to mow over them with a
lawn mower just to break them up it's an easy way to Hoover them up if it's on
the grass and then I pour them into my compost bin and just let them rot down
so another question that I get asked frequently is - how to renovate an old
mangled hedge and people write in to me and say do I rip it up and start again
what do we do? Now the answer is relatively simple yes you can renovate
an old hedge with a bit of time and patience now behind me you'll see the
remnants of what was over here you can see up there a really old out-of-control
Hawthorne hedge by using a chainsaw I've cut this back by about two-thirds down
to the ground probably about three or four feet off the ground what that will
do is send all the energy that was in the top growth down to those remains
stands and send out new growth and I'll show you some of that now now it's not a
quick fix and it'll probably take a couple of season this week just start to
put on new growth and look like a hedge again but it does show you that you
don't need to rip things out to start again you can renovate and prove with
the right tools. So there we have it Garden Ninjas quick and speedy way to
keep your hedges in tip-top condition if you have liked this video why not
subscribe to my youtube channel but there were loads more garden design
hints tips and hacks to help you make your garden Boursin I've been Garden
Ninja- happy gardening!