Taking Care of Your Shrub & Hedge Health - For a Beautiful Outdoor Space

Your garden's beauty and structure depend on just how well you take care of your shrubs and hedges. Leave shrubs to their own devices, and they can quickly get out of hand, losing their charm and detracting from the overall look of your property. On the other hand, a well-maintained hedge is not just a beautiful boundary but also a vital element of your outdoor space, providing a sense of elegance and peace of mind, knowing you have privacy.

We offer a professional shrub pruning service dedicated to trimming hedges and keeping your trees and tree branches vibrant, structurally sound, and looking their absolute best year-round. Unlike many other companies that offer only a quick trim, our service involves meticulous, targeted pruning, including the removal of dead branches, to encourage strong growth and maximize your plant's natural shape and beauty. Whether you're dealing with a long line of privacy hedges or more intricate ornamental shrub needs, we have the knowledge, skill, and proper equipment necessary to get it done properly every time, giving you a perfect trim. to get it done properly every time, giving you a perfect trim.

Our service is not just about keeping your plants looking great - it's really about the health of your shrubs. By strategically pruning your plants, we can improve air circulation, reducing the risk of fungal diseases and pests. We're careful to remove any dead branches, any branches that are hanging loose, and any branches that are on their way out, because these are the things that can be holding back the full potential of your shrubs.

By removing these weak branches, we can give your plants a significant boost, encouraging robust growth, including new shoots that lead to lush, dense growth and foliage. that leads to lush, dense foliage. Proper pruning is not just a matter of looks - it's also a necessary part of taking care of your plants and making sure they are set up to thrive in the long term and support future growth . We know that pruning at the right time and in the right way is crucial for different species of plants, which is why our service includes a thorough assessment of your specific hedges and shrubs.

• A Holistic Approach to Plant Care: We focus on doing precise, targeted pruning that encourages healthy growth in your shrubs and plants.

• Protecting Your Plants from Disease: We carefully remove dead or dying branches that can impede air circulation and increase susceptibility to disease.

• Customised Maintenance for Your Property: We offer bespoke ornamental shrub trimming and regular hedge maintenance tailored to your property's unique needs and style.

The Art & Science of Pruning - A Delicate Balance

Pruning is a skill that requires a combination of art and science. Get it wrong, and you could damage your plants or even reduce their ability to flower. Our team has the knowledge and expertise to get it right, using the proper pruning technique for each plant's unique shape and characteristics. We know for example that formal hedges like a traditional beech hedge need to be pruned with precision, using flat or tapered hedge trimming to keep their shape looking sharp and structured, especially in formal gardens.

Our mission is to make sure these hedges are perfectly straight and full of life from top to bottom. This is particularly important in formal gardens to maintain the desired height and achieve a perfect trim, especially when dealing with mature trees . . Tapering the sides so the base is slightly wider than the top allows light to reach the lower branches, ensuring they grow straight at the same rate and preventing bare patches at the bottom. - a great way to keep the hedge healthy and thriving.

On the other hand, informal hedges are often best left to grow naturally, and we only need to do a bit of light pruning to manage their size and get rid of any stray branches. But timing is everything - for most hedges, the best time to prune is during the growing season. However, if you have a flowering hedge, timing will depend on the specific species.

We prune after the year's blooms have faded, so as not to cut off next year's blooms, but before the heat of summer sets in. Doing it the other way around can mean sacrificing your beautiful flowers, especially if we accidentally cut off large branches that are crucial for next season's bloom . In addition to our shrub pruning service, we offer tree trimming for young trees and for maintaining the lower branches of mature trees.

• Shaping Formal Hedges: We specialise in precise, tapered hedge trimming to ensure formal hedges, such as beech, maintain their sharp, architectural shape, promote lush growth from the base to the top, and prevent bare patches.

• Working with Natural Form: We use light pruning on informal hedges to maintain their natural, beautiful form while removing only the branches that need to go.

• Timing for Blooms: Prune flowering hedges after their bloom cycle (after the year's blooms have faded) to protect next year's blooms without cutting off potential flowers.

• Branch Management: Our service includes essential tree trimming for young trees to help them grow strong and straight, and for mature trees to manage lower branches.

Caring for the Unique Needs of Each Plant Variety

Each plant type has unique pruning needs. Flowering hedges and shrubs are a great example. Some of these plants bloom only on new growth, so they should be pruned in late winter or early spring before new growth begins. This ensures they produce many new stems that will bear flowers.

Others bloom on old wood (last season's growth) and should be pruned immediately after flowering, focusing particularly on large branches. , usually in early summer, to allow sufficient time for the wood to develop for the following year's blooms. Our expertise means we always know the best time to prune your plants, including when to tackle overgrown hedges so you don't have to worry about damaging them.

When We Trim Deciduous Hedges

We tend to do our deciduous hedge trims - like a beech hedge - later in the season, just to keep things looking neat as far as height and density go. We also do a lot of work on fruit trees, where pruning is a must not just for looks, but to really make those trees produce the best fruit they possibly can. And let's not forget about giving that fruit a little extra TLC by letting some light in - it makes a world of difference.

We use a combination of thinning and heading cuts to maximize the effectiveness of each pruning cut with a better technique . For severely overgrown hedges, we might recommend rejuvenation pruning and thorough pruning hedges, using hand shears to cut back the thickest stems to ground level and then do additional pruning over the course of a few seasons.

• New Growth Bloomers: For hedges that flower in the spring, we prune them in late winter or early spring to make sure they're just bursting with new growth - all that new growth will be producing flowers come springtime.

• Old Wood Bloomers: We prune these flowering hedges immediately after they bloom in early summer. That way, they've got plenty of time to recover before the next blooming season.

• Fruit Tree Pruning: We actually do a bunch more than just trimming these trees - we're talking about maxing out that fruit yield and making sure those branches are getting enough light.

• Rejuvenation for Overgrowth: If a hedge has gone a bit wild, we'll do a rejuvenation prune - that means cutting back all the biggest stems to the ground level to get the plant looking healthy and happy again.

• Precision Cuts: We only do thinning and heading cuts on our plants - every single pruning cut we make is designed to help the plant get stronger and healthier.

The Importance of Pruning at the Right Time

Pruning is year-round, but there are times of year that are better than others, and pruning at the wrong time can harm your plants. for certain tasks. We specialize in seasonal pruning and use the right tools to keep your trees and shrubs in the right shape and looking their very best. In late winter months, it's the perfect time to tackle dead or dying branches and prevent winter damage. and repair damage from the winter. Early spring is all about getting your young trees looking their best - we do a lot of structural pruning at this time to make sure those branches are nice and sturdy. And if we haven't already had a chance to do some heavy pruning on your deciduous hedges and hardwood trees, now's the time to do it - before the spring growth starts and really gets underway.

• Late Winter/Early Spring Pruning: This is our time to do some serious structural pruning on your trees and shrubs - we're talking about removing dead branches, repairing any damage from the winter, and getting everything looking ship-shape for the growing season.

• Young Tree Structuring: We perform extensive structural pruning on young trees in early spring, ensuring branches are sturdy and the tree will grow strong and healthy.

• Late Spring/Early Summer Maintenance: This is just a general tidy-up time for us - we'll do some light pruning and trimming on your hedges to keep them looking their best as the new growth starts to come in.

• Late Summer Safety Trim: We perform our final pruning and trimming on your hedges in late summer, but we're careful not to overdo it, as we don't want to encourage new growth that might be vulnerable to frost.

Full-Service Pruning and Cleanup

We're not just a pruning service - we're a full-service landscaping team. When we come to your place, we've got everything we need to get the job done right, from our shears and loppers to our powered hedge trimming tools. We take care to avoid damaging any other plants or structures in your garden, and we clean up after ourselves.

Once the pruning is done, we'll bag or haul away all the clippings and branches we've removed - that way, you don't have to worry about a thing. Our technicians are highly trained in safe operation for many species of plants and effective pruning techniques, especially when it comes to pruning hedges and addressing damaged branches . , and we ensure your property looks immaculate.

• Full-Spectrum Pruning: We can handle anything from a beech hedge to a fruit tree - big branches or fine details, we're happy to do it all.

• Complete Cleanup: We don't just stop at pruning - we'll bag or haul away all the clippings and branches we've removed, leaving your yard looking like new.

• Year-Round Help: We're not just a seasonal pruning service - we're here to help your trees and shrubs stay healthy and looking their best all year round.

• Structural Support: We perform extensive structural pruning on young trees to ensure they remain strong and healthy, and we'll monitor them throughout the year to keep them looking their best.