Help! Our Beech hedge is too high

John Geraghty asked 15 years ago

Our Beech hedge is about 13 years old and we (ourselves) have kept at a height of 12 foot. Its about 500 feet long but does not have a tapered shape. It looks beautiful and gives great privacy but from a maintenance point of view we really find it too high and we feel we need to reduce its height by 2 to 3 feet. The trunk is pretty thick and I’d say the easiest way out is to take chain saw to it (hope I’m not frightening you!) or take the winter to gradually saw each plant by hand. How would you go about this? Many thanks.

1 Answers

Gerry Daly Staff answered 7 years ago
To reduce the height of a beech hedge is not too difficult to do. Decide on a height, mark with spray paint and a taut line and cut each tree in the hedge with a pruning saw or lopping shears, depending on thickness.

It can be very dangerous to use a chainsaw on a hedge as the thin branches can cause the chain to jump out of the guide bar and the chain can break when this happens.

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