hiya all
we have a very tired looking privet hedge its about 6ft tall and we dont
want to cut it any lower,but it just needs a boost any ideas for encouraging new growth
and to just liven it up in spring
thanks
phil
Hiya. :)
I was wondering if you've tried feeding it previously?
Privet responds really well to pruning and I can understand why your not too keen to lower it but the rule of thumb to rejuvenate them is as follows.
cut hard back on one side in the spring and keep trimming the top and the other side as normal, when I did one of our hedges I cut the side branches right back to the middle stems. the hedge will grow and green up in no time if you do it in March.
the following year you can do the same to the front of the hedge.
I would also lower it by at least a foot at this stage - it will grow back within a year if you're not over zealous with the clippers.
i did part of my front hedge 5 years ago and cut it back to basically 5 sticks which have no grown into a tight compact hedge which is better than the rest
you can also feed it at the base throughout this process, if you just feed it as it is it will grow ever taller and ever wider but be dead and straggly in the middle, top heavy and naked at the bottom. To get it to sprout at the base you have to look at all the exposed branches you have cut back to and chop alternate ones at various heights - this means you get new healthy growth at different levels.
how do I know this I am surrounded by privet hedges in my garden and most others on the suburb too but some are lucky to have Beach and others Yew, sigh but as you can tell its a big job but I kind of like doing it, dumb as it sounds.
google rejuvenating privet might give you more answers too.
Nora
thanks for that gonna give it a feed in spring and it had to be cut hard back in the summer
due to neglect so i might wait to see if it picks up in spring we dont want to remove it as it is a
great screen from a busy road
Give it something like manure which is going to perk up the soil long term rather than an artificial fertiliser. Many such hedges suffer because they're growing in exhausted soil which never gets anything put into it.
honestly if you cut it back in summer it will take longer to grow, cut it back in spring and it will have the whole sring summer and early Autum to grow.
and privet is very hard to kill loves a prune and will recover.
Nora
Cut it now, let it grow till late summer, then trim it.