Question
South view of hedge
Can you suggest how to get a hedge between my home and the neighbours under control again? Would gradual trimming do the trick? It seems to be dying closer to my house out to about 10 feet,with bare dead limbs.The attached photo is well away from the house.
I have an electric hedge trimmer,and have offered to loan it to my neighbour,but have not been approached by him to date,and have trimmed my side of the hedge as best I can.It is about 10 feet tall at present.I live in Winnipeg,Manitoba.
Thanks!
AnswerHello Michael
I've had a good look at the larger picture you posted and I don't think that your hedge is dead, just neglected.
There are things that you can do to improve matters, but complete renovation is going to take time.
The first thing to do is reduce the height of the hedge by 12" - 18" making a neat, flat top. Next trim back the end which is visible in the picture and your side of the hedge, without cutting into bare wood (leave 3 or 4 leaves minimum). This will encourage the hedge to send out new shoots and thicken up where it's looking bare.
It looks to me that the grass merges right into the hedge, where they will be competing for moisture and nutrients, so the next thing to do, and this might sound a bit drastic, but will work! - take out a strip of grass from the bottom of the hedge about 18" wide. You only need to go down about 2" to expose the soil. Remove as much grass as you can from within the hedge line. Loosen the soil a little with a garden fork and apply a mulch of well rotted compost to beef up the soil and give the hedge a good feed - the compost can be either home made or bought in. You will need to reply it each spring.
As the hedge begins to grow, keep the top down - this is important because left to itself the new growth will naturally come from the top, rather than the sides, which you will also need to keep trimmed back as is grows out to encourage it to become bushier there.
It might take 2 or 3 years to fully renovate the hedge, but the hard work will be worth it in the end. It's a shame your neighbor isn't being more cooperative, as cutting both sides of the hedge would really give the best result. Maybe you could try again?
Gill
