How to Prune an Overgrown Hedge | This Old House
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2014
- This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook saves a neglected, unkempt hedge. (See below for a shopping list and tools.)
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Shopping List for
- plastic tree ties [amzn.to/34sHBlL]
Tools for
- orchard ladder [amzn.to/2ZYIShi], used for reaching top of tall hedge (can be rented)
- bypass pruners [amzn.to/34wV3FA]
- pole pruner [amzn.to/2LzbW9G] (can be rented)
- leaf rake [amzn.to/2HOGRhh]
- wheelbarrow [amzn.to/2PQCWXL]
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How to Prune an Overgrown Hedge | This Old House
/ thisoldhouse - Jak na to + styl
Thank you so much on the great advice on how to deal with a hedge that has been neglected, without ruining or killing it. I looked for literally hours on the internet and found nothing useful and, just as I was about to give up, I found your video. It may take a few years but I know I can sort my hedge out now. Very many thanks!
I could listen to this man talk all day.
One of the best video I had seen in ages on trimming by hand (and , believe me, there are a lot of people not understanding the meaning of that). Holes are the beginning of new growth in the inside of the branches for a lot of type of plants.
great to see the point made about hedge sheers, how I loath then, and cutting the "holes" for sun and air. Tanks for confirming that
great to see a sensable way to cut hedge- I will always remember how to do this work. And no noice from machines only love. Your hedge loves you!
Love a man that knows what he is doing. Roger Cook is great at what he does.
I just bought a badass trimmer with a V-8...and goddammit...I'm gonna use it...
This is why you choose the right shrub for the job. If you need a 20-30ft arb that stays 3-4ft wide check out the Americana Pillar Arborvitae. The emerald green or the North Pole arborvitae stays narrow and 12-14ft tall.
Orchaaaard laaader. Lapperrrrs. Love it!
I had some huge bushes/hedges? in the landscaping in front on the house we just bought. They were about 5 feet tall and covered a good majority of the front window. I couldn't even get to the water spout on the house they were so bulky. I just ended up cutting them down to the trunks, so it just some tree trunk looking things out front. I'm assuming they'll grow back over the years and I can shape them how I want, but if they don't I'll just replace them with something more manageable.
I trimmed my Grandmother's shrubs many years ago, they were so overgrown they were taking up half her backyard. Seems like I had to trim off 2/3 of them to get em back far enough. Looked like heck at first but after a couple years they looked great and didn't monopolize the yard.
I have to do that this spring to tackle hedges that previous homeowners neglected and worried about it coming back normally. Your comments give me hope.
'throw those hedgetrimmers away' and hand prune well and often
Great work. I have a skip laurel at the edge of my driveway that has grown way over and it’s preventing me from parking. I’m wondering if it will cause severe damage to the plant if I prune 16 -20 inches into the side of it removing all of the greenery and if this is a good time to do it here in New Jersey. April 4.
Hi! Two small questions, I bought these plastic tree ties a while ago. I have a tall cedar hedge who was neglected by previous owner and has many branches either crumbling due to weight and a few holes here and there. So I used the ties to try and patch these holes and try and "shape" the crumbling branches a bit (works quite well, thanks for the tip!). One thing that concerned me a bit though, is that those plastic ties seem a bit "scratchy" (the plastic isn't soft) so I'm wondering if it'll scratch the tree's skin off (and then hurt it, make it dry out, who knows?). Haven't noticed issues so far, but in the winter here it winds a lot and attached branches move a lot.
I actually agree with, with this sort of hedge. My neighbour's Leylandii is a real mess. He inherited it when he moved in about 10 yrs ago, and between us we've been gradually reducing the height. I am very ill, and it always makes me really ill every yr, but every yr it I get more control over it....he doesn't bother with much maintenance on his side, and my side is a lot more uniform, because I just keep working away bit by bit every yr.
Would love to see how the hedges turned out after 2 years.
instablaster
I have an 60 ft wall of these trees (hedges) . They are about 14ft high and the right half are not looking good . The outside leaves are brown and the trees are thinning out . The left half is not the same for some reason. I am trying to water them more now that the winter in the northeast is coming to an end. Anything else I can do to promote growth on the ones that are looking bad. Also how much can I safely trim off the top. I've had a foot taken off twice in 2 years by a landscaper. $300 for each time . You're right about the branches on the inside being bare , mine are this way.
Hi, I'm about to do cedar hedge reduction, do you know how long does it take to be green again if we cut to the hardwood on the top?
Powerful trimmer
Hand trimming was necessary in this case but in the future when it’s thick everywhere there’s no reason why it can’t be hedge trimmed. It was just neglected for too long so it required this additional treatment.
457,754 little clips later they were done. That 1" limb he butched was contradicting his first statement
Great Comment Jack, people don't realize this was a Cedar Hedge Repair job not a standard way to cut an otherwise healthy hedge, Roger is good on some things, but he should stick to simple gardening
I have boxwoods that are over 10” tall and the owner wants them cut to about 4feet. Can I take a chainsaw and cut them to 4’ft? All the branches inside are green and great growth. The plants are over 50 years old.
Hi! This makes a lot of sense. Just one question: how do you go about at the top? Do you cut the main stem just right back? The Thujas I've got in the garden seem to be slow growing (I've inherited them from the previous owner). They are now about three metres high. My main concern is that they grow too tall and block off the sun. What do you recommend? Thanks from Sweden :) Deborah
Look for a telescoping pole saw
Hahaha, I’m also in Sweden basically have the same question.
I wish I had watched this video years ago - our golden cypresses are tall and huge - 3 were planted by builders. I had started clipping with hedge trimmers but they only got bigger. When I did cut back I wasn't aware that the holes were okay (I didn't like the holes) so I had stopped trimming. Today all 3 look like one huge glob with varying heights. Guess I'll trim back as vid showed - let the holes show and hopefully get them to where I'd like them soon.
Can I top a 10’ arborvitae down to 5’?
Sweet!!
Joseph Viqueira
Hey you really know your stuff. Funny middle name you have there.
Will it help to add a buch of worms to the soil underneath the hedge?
Wow wow wow
Should you start at the top or bottom
so trim back to where new growth visible ... so when the best time of year to do this
Late winter/early spring
Yep.
how about how to cut a high hedge on a hilly garden
i have probally 100 feet of hedge all trimmed nicely..but on a jungle hedge like that.. that's not a hedge..that's a jungle.. chainsaw..lower them by 4 feet and cut it back by 1 foot and shape it ..yes it will look bony for a year but it will fill in again.. its a weed.. cant kill it
yup...you are right..i know.. Its a chain saw situation. I know.
Can't kill an arborvitae? Have you ever seen one in person? Cut these too deep and they don't grow back.
What does a tree tie do
Well, does this mean you can never use a hedge trimmer with a hedge of this kind?Just asking, because our previous neighbor never bothered to cut our hedge of exactly this sort of type, believe it is called a thuja, resulting in 2 split hedges.
Per Jensen Wait another few years, and you'll have the first brown spots in your hedge you will never get away
What kind of hedge is that? Green giant?
No, it looks like emerald green arborvitae. The nice thing about green giant is that its maintenance free and you never have to trim it and it keeps its shape even through snow and ice.
Right tip of right finger missing on Roger's hand.
I wish i watched this video before!
I don't understand why these weren't trimmed the same way they show doing azaleas - i.e., cutting only certain branches but much closer to the bottom. Why the difference?
He makes a snip and the other guy goes “wow.......wow” 😂😂😂😂
3:40 Is that rake made of rubber?
Plastic
are they cedar?
No arborvitae.
Man you'll be forever using that hand trimmer.
That's the way it's supposed to be done. No hedge shears.
hey...sounds good. Why no Hedge shears? Please explain. Because i have these exact same bushes and they were neglected on the property for 25 yrs and we just moved in 4 yrs ago, and THEY need help. A lot of help. They are soooooooooo tall, and I'm not tall and don't have ladders and cannot afford a person to come and cut them for me. its crazy. They are nice, but make my yard look a MESS.
You will need to get hold of long ladder, a long rope and a saw. Remember to tie the ladder to the tree trunk below the point you are cutting as it can spring away from the tree when you cut it.
Get up as high as you can so you are only cutting fairly small pieces off the top.
Tie the rope above the cut and have someone to pull on the piece you are cutting so you know where it is going to fall so it does not hit you or cause damage when it falls.
As he explained in video, using shears only cuts outside edge of shrub and creates a "blob" of growth at end so inside of tree doesn't ge light. You can probably rent a ladder or even one of those small cherry picker things. Just be careful when hand trimming--if you don't leave some new growth on a branch, it will not grow any new "leaves" back. I learned that the hard way... : ( Now I have one bush that's "naked" on one side cause I didn't find this video before I started pruning.
How much of life do you figure people want to spend on a plant somewhere in the back of a garden?
I-Is that _Jack Dalton?_
I like the hand clipper idea, but that's just not practical in a lawn care business most of the time. What I do is hedge trim, scissor and then use hand clippers to detail it out.
You're not supposed to be a barber, dummy!
Use gloves when clipping....blood looks tough but also a little clumsy (1:45)
Everyone isn't like you snowflake it accident waiting to happen
How do I convince my neighbor to not let his weeds turn into trees?
Chainsaw.
Mud im crying lmfao 😂😂😂
Flamethrower
Suggest that your neighbor watch a structural pruning video to help volunteer fence line trees prduce a single apical dominant trunk. Instead of multi trunked octopuses.
Roundup
I don't think the average homeowner is going to have an orchard ladder or a pole pruner for a large diameter branch or
know someone who does. Are the tree ties metal or PVC ? I use heavy bungee cords for this.
The biggest mistake I see people make with Arborvitaes is to just let it grow indefinitely
without ever pruning them. Then one day they decide they are wayyy too large and decide to
prune 10 feet off. At that point the branches are so thick they are hard to prune without a
chainsaw. If you let them grow to 20+ feet, they become much more vulnerable to a
windstorm because longer branches act as a lever to break the leaders at their base. Our neighbor
lost his entire 20'+ tree because it was in an area of his back yard that began getting water runoff
from recently cemented neighboring yards and the combination of rain & wind brought the entire
tree down by the roots. At a time when our weather is becoming more violent, it is increasingly
important to prune trees and tall bushes like arborvitae. (We are getting a lot more windstorms
in the ten years since we moved here, and they are also more violent.)
I like keeping our arborvitae at about 8-10 feet tall. Anything larger than that is hard for many
homeowners to maintain. We prune them every 2-3 years, to bring them back down to about 8'.
WRZ
Delaware County, PA
metro-Philadelphia
Ties are plastic, link is in the description.
Anyone else saw the guy bleeding at 1:48?
Listen to those accents! I'll bet they pahk thea cahs in Hahvahd Yahd.
Nothing better to do than make fun of an accent?
David Redden: "REEEEE!" - you all the time, probably
100% he went back to hedge trimming
“Throw those hedge trimmers away”
“I will”
Homeowner one year later... hedge trimming with the not so forsaken trimmers.
This is nice if you have all day
i am still waiting that how I can make my trees grow faster
Regular feeding don't get fertilizer on the leaves of the bush or tree because it will likely burn them
Did anyone else see the blood drip from Rogers finger at 1:48?
good eye dude
Nobody makes Roger bleed his own blood! That’s the bushes blood dripping down a killers hand🩸
Tying this weak hedge is nearing the end. It needs more light not tying.
Wahn inch diYAMehtah braynch.
How can you enjoy holes in a hedge ?!
Laurent BOCQUET It lets air and sun into the inner branches, will fill out thicker and healthier every year if they keep pruning properly
leave it to This Old House to make ALL jobs more difficult.
how would you do it then ?
stateniland l
Leave it to youtube comments to make non constructive criticism.
leave it to This Old House to teach you how to do it right so the tree doesn't die, and you don't pay 1k to rip up all the trees and plant new ones.
should of been cut years ago now its a mess
who's got time for this, seriously? No way!
Cut these bhack even fhather
It feels wrong to say the names of a false gods, thus it would be wrong.
Clorox
no residential hedge should be more than 8' tall....
71jdonn mine are 20' to 25'
Blood on the closeup! Ew.
Micky Mouse amateur stuff
Terrible
Pagge333 あ
か
Way too tall.
Nobody has the time to do that unless u have no job and have nothing else to do