Using Hedge Trimmer on Neglected Cedar Hedge

Last time I wrote about the Little Wonder hedge trimmer I had purchased used from Home Depot Tool Rental.

Let’s see how it worked today, shall we?

So, this is our starting point. We have a mature cedar hedge running the full length on either side of our back yard (approximately 40 feet).

On the one side our neighbour has maintained it dutifully each year to keep it looking great as shown in the picture below of the well manicured mature cedar hedge.

I, on the other hand (or the neighbour on the other side of us … take your pick   ) has done nothing to the mature cedar hedge on the other side of our back yard for at least three years (which is as long as we have lived in our current home). It is way too tall.

My plan is to reduce the size of this overgrown cedar hedge so it approximates the size and slope of the one on the other side of the back yard.

Using the Little Wonder hedge trimmer I started to trim this cedar hedge a little lower than the height of the one on the other side of the property. Why? Well cutting so deep into the hedge will as you will see result in exposed bare branches, stems, trunks. So I need to leave a little room at the top for future growth of the hedge to cover the bare branches with the nice cedar leaves.

Even with the more than 2 and 1/2 feet of blade on the Little Wonder hedge trimmer I was not able to cut the hedge on the opposite side. Some of these branches were just too far away.

As well, there were some cedar trunks which were much more than the maximum 1/2 inch diameter which this hedge trimmer was designed to trim.

It took about 5 hours of work over the course of a full day, breaking every hour or so, to cut about one third of the cedar hedge.

I stood back to gaze upon the results of my efforts.

At this point I had two choices.

One option was to go back to Home Depot Tool Rental (or any tool rental outlet) and rent another device which was both longer in reach as well as designed to cut branches / trunks greater than 1/2 inch in diameter.

The other option was to call a professional to come over and finish the job.

I chose the latter. A couple of days latter I called three different companies to come over and provide quotes. One never returned my call. One came and left without giving a quote and the third came to give a quote which we accepted. It was the same company which we had used in the past to remove two trees on our property.

And, yes, before you start to leave comments how I should only have cut a maximum of 20 to 30% per year (to reduce the potential of plant shock) and not the 50%, let me state a fewthings. First, to err is human. We write about our successes and mistakes equally so you can learn (yes, the professional educator in me).

Second, no one told me about this potential. Third, I guess I didn’t do sufficient searches on the Internet as I never saw this risk.

And fourth, June has seen the most rain in our area in many, many, many years so all that water will have helped reduce the plant shock from such a deep cut.

To take a look at the next stage in our home maintenance effort with our neglected and overgrown cedar hedge, see how the professionals performed.

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