FREE online courses on Vegetable Gardening - Pruning - Pruning Formal Hedges

 

To turn a row of unruly shrubs into a formal hedge will probably require a couple seasons and several sessions of pruning, but here are the general steps:

• Thin out the dead, crossed and unsuitable branches, cutting them right to the ground.
• Use long-bladed shears to cut about 6 inches off the tops of the shrubs, leaving a flat surface.
• Trim the sides back to create a flat plane, but flare out slightly away from the plant as you go down so it's wider at the bottom than the top. That will expose the bottom to more sun and encourage leaf production top to bottom.
• Once it's close to what you want, quit and let it grow for a month or two. Don't overdo the first cut.
• When you come back for the second cut, trim the top and the sides back again with the long-bladed shears to remove the wild ends but leave as much of the new growth as you can.

 

At some point, you can determine the final size and shape of the hedge and then focus your pruning on keeping it that way.