Hedge Trimming
Hedge work is the slowest part of a property refresh — and the part that makes the biggest difference to how a place looks from the street.
A hedge is a slow thing. It grows a hand a year in a good season and a lot faster after a wet winter, and by the time it needs doing properly it is often taller, wider and denser than the space it is meant to be filling. That is why hedge trimming is the job we spend a lot of time on, and why the finish matters as much as the cut.
The aim is a clean face and a straight line. A hedge that has been chopped at random still technically counts as trimmed, but it goes thin and ragged at the top and starts letting light through into the middle. We cut the face and the top so the plant keeps its density, which keeps it looking full from the street and keeps the growth packed in.
Height changes how the job is done. A low box hedge along a front fence is hand work with a shear or a trimmer. A tall shelter hedge or boundary hedge needs a platform lift so the top can be reached without climbing, and the cut still has to come down to ground level at the base to square it off. Both end the same way — a straight line from one end to the other.
Arisings get cleared as part of the job. Cut branches at the base of a hedge are the thing that makes a trimming job look unfinished, so they come out and go away rather than being left in a pile next to the path. If the hedge is over a lawn, the ground underneath gets raked and the debris removed.
Hedges are worth keeping on a schedule through the growing season. A light cut every few weeks holds the line where it is; a hedge left for a year can put a job back into a different, much more expensive category.
Hedge Trimming, photographed as it happens.
The photo here is a Smileys Property Rescue job on a Christchurch property — the kind of shot that tells you what the work actually looks like once it is done.
Every image on this site comes from our own Facebook page, where we post jobs as we finish them. If you want to see more before you get in touch, that page is the honest place to look.
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Other work we do.
Need hedge trimming done?
Send a message on Facebook with the suburb and a photo of the job. We will come back to you with the next step.