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One of the best ways to add a lovely, formal look to a property is to grow some evergreen foliage along the borders. This offers you a little bit of extra privacy while also beautifying your property.
While cedars serve as a perfect hedgerow providing year-round colour, aesthetic interest, and property privacy, they require regular hedge trimming, pruning, and maintenance. The seasons can be a determining factor on how you should go about maintaining your cedar hedge.
Below are some trimming, pruning, and maintenance tips that will help you take care of your cedar hedge throughout the year.
Spring: Start trimming
Typically, cedar trees grow anywhere from one to three feet in a year. It’s important to keep up with your trimming duties so that your hedgerow doesn’t become unkempt.
When trimming, you will have to remove one-third to two-thirds of the length of the cedar’s growth in the current year using a manual hand shear (you can read our article on hand shears here) or an electric hedge trimming tool.
The question is, when is the best time to start trimming? The best time to begin is in early spring. This is to promote healthy growth throughout the summer months.
Summer: Prune throughout the season.
After your trees have been trimmed during spring, it’s crucial to continue hedge maintenance during the summer. Trim your cedars after every six inches (or 15 cm) of growth during the summer months.
When pruning, follow the natural pyramid growth of the cedars. Prune the uneven foliage, allowing the bottom branches to remain long and trimming a little bit closer as you move up the length of the tree. Since summer is typically hot and dry, make sure that you water the cedars once a week.
Autumn: Avoid trimming.
While the summer trimming of your cedar hedge is essential for maintenance purposes, it is a good idea to avoid any hedge trimming during autumn. When September comes, your cedars are preparing for the colder months ahead, focusing their energy on their roots. Therefore, trimming will harm your cedars as open cuts will be harder to heal. This will leave your cedar trees vulnerable to damage that could take months to repair. It’s better to be safe than sorry - no trimming or pruning during autumn!
Winter: Protect your cedar hedges.
Winter can be potentially damaging to your cedar hedge given the cold season. So what better way to protect your cedar hedges during winter than to do a little winter prevention? How do you go about doing this? Remove any precipitation build-up that has accumulated at the top of the hedges brought by the snow. Chances are your cedars’ branches might end up bending and breaking because of the weight. Also, be wary of de-icing salt as it can cause major damage to your cedars. Make sure to cover up your hedges as this can potentially kill them.
Conclusion
Trimming, pruning, and maintaining your cedar hedgerow should be taken into utmost consideration, lest you want your cedar hedge to end up aesthetically unattractive, unsuitable for a private border, and potentially dying during the winter season. Trimming your hedges isn’t that difficult - you just need to exercise caution. But more than anything else, it’s vital to maintain good cedar hedge care if you want this hedgerow to serve its purpose. For some more help, here are some tips on cedar hedges.
Do you need some advice on hedge cutting?
If you’re thinking of incorporating a cedar hedge into your outside space but are not sure where to start, contacting a specialist to help you could be a good idea.
George-Stone Gardens are a friendly team of gardening professionals based in Cheltenham. We have years of experience in hedge cutting along with many other gardening and landscaping tasks. Contact us today to see what we can do for you
