How to keep your garden hedges tidy in the summer

Home » How to keep your garden hedges tidy in the summer

Free Delivery Over £150*

*some exclusions apply

Price Match Promise

*some exclusions apply

plants shrubs

How to keep your garden hedges tidy in the summer

The summer months produce optimum growth conditions, and just when we want our hedges looking neat and trimmed, they start sprouting. Here are a few tips on hedge care to keep your garden looking great.

Pruning and trimming

Pruning and trimming are not quite the same. Newly planted hedging will need pruning in the spring of its first two years to encourage denser, more compact growth, particularly if the hedge is needed as a screen or perimeter boundary. Use secateurs to cut back growth by about a third, and shape so that the top part of the hedge is less wide than the lower part, allowing sunlight to reach the whole plant.

Summer maintenance

Hedges are essentially rows of shrubs or trees that have been encouraged to grow together. Popular choices are hawthorn, privet, beech, hornbeam, hazel, yew and cypress. Most established hedges need a trim in June after flowering, and then again in August, towards the end of the growing season. This can be done with shears, but if you have a substantial length of hedging, an electric hedge trimmer is a sensible investment and makes the job easier and quicker. A long-angled blade is also a real help for taller hedging.

For hedges with larger, waxy leaves like laurel, use secateurs for interim cuts to avoid the cut leaves turning brown. Only use electric cutters if you need to thin out or substantially reduce the height.

Your hedges are well worth looking after – they form a great backdrop for your rattan garden furniture, absorb sound, reduce pollution and give your garden shape and structure.

You may be interested in...

Scroll to Top