Hedges, foundation plantings and ornamental shrubs need more than shortening. We shape them to the plant, thin them where they have closed up, and take the growth back off the walls, the windows and the roof line.
Shearing is running a trimmer over the outside of a plant and taking every shoot back to the same flat plane. One shearing does a shrub no harm. A shrub that is cut that way every time slowly hollows out on the inside.
Every time a shrub is sheared it answers by putting a flush of new shoots out at the cut. Those shoots are all on the outside of the plant, so the outer few inches get denser and denser. That shell then shades everything behind it. After a few seasons of it you have a green skin about two inches thick over an interior of bare twigs, and the plant has no live growth left down inside it.
The problem shows up the first time the shell is broken. A branch pulled out by a storm, scraped by a car door or cut back hard leaves a hole with nothing behind it to fill in, because there is no foliage in there to grow from. A hedge in that condition takes a long time to recover and sometimes does not.
Humidity is the other half of it. A shrub sheared into a solid box holds still, damp air inside it right through the wet season, and a plant with no air moving through it stays wet long after the rain has stopped. That is the condition fungal leaf spots and mildews need to get going.
Pruning is the alternative and it does not take longer. Cuts are made at different depths instead of all at one plane, so the outline of the hedge stays where you want it while light and air still reach the middle of the plant.
Hedge work can be booked on its own or added to a maintenance visit. Either way the same four things happen, and the property is left clean.
Some properties only ever need the hedges done. Others have us do them as part of the regular visit so they never get away.
If you are not sure which suits your yard, we will look at the plants you have and say what we would do.
A flowering shrub carries next season's flowers on wood it has already grown, or on wood it has not grown yet, and the two are cut at opposite ends of the year. Cutting a spring flowering shrub in winter takes next season's flowers off with the clippings.
Azalea, gardenia and Indian hawthorn set their flower buds on the growth they made the season before. The time to cut them is soon after they finish flowering, while there is still a long season left for them to make the wood that carries the next set of buds.
Hibiscus, plumbago, oleander and ixora flower on growth they put out in the same season, so late winter or early spring is a safe time to cut them back. Ixora is the one that suffers most from being sheared, because a shearing takes the forming flower heads with it every time.
Viburnum, podocarpus and ligustrum are planted for foliage and screening rather than for flower, so they can be shaped through most of the year. The time to be careful is late fall, because a hard cut then pushes soft new growth out just as the first cold fronts come through.
Foundation plantings are the ones that cause trouble, because they are the closest to the building and they are usually the last thing anyone looks at.
Foliage held against a wall keeps it damp and keeps the paint from drying out after rain. A hand's width of air behind the shrub is enough to stop that.
A shrub grown up over a window takes the light out of the room behind it and gives anyone outside something to stand behind. Windows are worth keeping clear for both reasons.
Anything reaching the eaves, the soffit or the gutter drops leaf litter into the gutter and holds moisture against the fascia. It comes down off the roof line.
The path to the front door stays walkable, and the A/C unit, the meters and the hose bibs stay reachable for the people who need to get at them.
Hedge work is often the point at which the rest of the beds get attention as well, because the shrubs and the ground under them are one job to look at.
Call us and we will come out, look at the plants you actually have and tell you what we would take off them and when. There is no obligation once you have it.
Seven days a week, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Email cjackc.inc@gmail.com.