Hey Team …… today’s post is simply why you should hedge ya hedge to prolonge it’s life and appearance !!
Most people are way too attached to their hedges, mainly because in it’s present form, it provides shade or privacy etc, but lurking underneath these perceived benefits is a tangled web of sticks, twigs, branches and trunks. Well maybe that is a bit melodramatic, but this is the thrust of this post.
A lot of hedges look fantastic but are really nothing more than a system of those sticks and twigs covered by a very thin veneer of leaves. We refer to this as being a “shell” of leaf coverage. The problem with this shell of leaf is that the outside of the hedge becomes this harsh sharp environment where pointed twigs lay just below the surface of the hedge, ready to scratch you at every brush against the hedge.
Our job as garden or horticulture professionals is to thicken that shell of leaves into a wall of leaves covering your hedge. A wall of leaf cover gives the hedge a soft comforting feel with soft pliable stems (not hard twigs) which protects you, your car and anything else that comes in contact with the hedge.
This is the point at which conflict between the professional and the hedge owner begin. Home owners have an attachment to plants that the professional does not. As homeowners, we all have a plant or two that is well past it’s use by date or lifespan but we continue to water and feed it and pray over it in the hope that it will miraculously burst back into life. The professional will accept the loss and replant and learn from the previous loss of plant life.
Many a time I have turned up to offer a quote and my professional advice and the owner of the hedge will immediately reject that advice and ask for their oversize and overgrown hedge to be “very lightly trimmed” …….. thus further expanding the skeleton of sticks and twigs and further enhancing of this veneer or shell of leaf cover on the hedge. The main problem with this reluctance to act on professional advice is that the hedge continues to get taller and wider as it is only lightly trimmed until the point at which it encroaches on the driveway or fence or shed or house gutters etc etc. At this point it becomes inevitable that drastic modification of the hedge is needed and the homeowners have to face what should have been done years earlier. The look on the homeowners faces when their beloved hedge is cut back to a stump, is almost akin to losing one of their limbs. However when the hedge is back to a soft comforting hedge some months later, they start to appreciate the advice given to them earlier.
My advice is to heed the professionals and correct your hedge sooner rather than later by regular hedging to keep a soft wall of leaf and stems.
Here are examples of plants, trees and hedges that have been cut and are bouncing back into life.
These two little Durantas or Sheenas Gold 
were originally one giant bush that was nearly six feet in height and blocking the view when exiting the drive onto the road. The bush was sparse and had exposed twigs and in generally very poor condition after years of the owners refusing to let anyone cut into their beloved plant. After a prolonged wrangle between the neighbours and the local council it was declared that the bush had to go. We were called in to remove the bush but I offered the professional advice that the bush could be reduced back to its stumps and revived into a pleasant little hedge plant. The pic shows the beauty of this little plant just 6 months after reducing it to nothing more than bare central stumps 12 inches in height. The plants now have a lovely soft cover and and the owners are delighted to have retained their “loved ones”
This beautiful long Murraya 
was a huge overgrown mess with many bare patches and a very thin veneer of leaf cover. The very sharp, sub leaf twigs would scratch cars moving across the grass area entering the property. After offering advice on 3 seperate occassions the owner allowed us to cut and revive the hedge on the promise that he would sue us for damages if the hedge died !!!! …… I cut the hedge back to a series of bare stumps just 8 inches in height and look at it now. The pic is the same stumps just 6mths later.
Here is what happens when you dont take professional advice and let the hedge get away from you. 
This stand of Murraya has a very thin veneer of leaf cover and as the hedge has grown the bare stump extends skyward and exposes the undercarriage of the plant. The very top of the hedge is now a web of non hedgeable size branches. You can spend hours trying to hedge and shape this plant ….. but at the end of the day it may be unsalvageable unless you cut it back to bare stumps of about 24 inches in height.
At the end of the day …. “hedge ya hedge”